What calls for thinking?

Mika Elo

My video "Mitä ajattelu kutsuu?" exposed here, audiovisually mimics, translates, challenges and transposes Martin Heidegger's essay "Was heißt Denken?". A compilation of passages of Heidegger's essay, which I have translated into Finnish for this purpose, makes up the voice-over accompanying the images in the video. The exposition also includes these passages in Finnish and German writing. The visual language of the video, in turn, edges Heidegger's pondering out of its focus by turning itself towards a series of questions deriving from the margins and lacunae of the essay. In its own peculiar way, the video is a call for thinking. Further, a text, entitled "conversation" in the menu, addresses some aspects of Heidegger's essay as if seen through the video. The conversation revolves around the questions of language and translation. Its form reflects the density and multifaceted character of the audiovisual material. Finally, "epilogue" attempts at unfolding a question concerning "intelligent design" that arises from the material. Here, my main point of reference is Jean-Luc Nancy's notion of struction.

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–––– (2007): "Ajatteleva tutminus / Thinking Research", in Toisaalta tässä – Valokuva teoksena ja tutkimuksena / Here Then – The Photograph as Work of Art and as Research, ed. Mika Elo, Helsinki: Taik and Kuva.

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