"MASSNAHME" Museum of Natural History Vienna, 2013.

MASSNAHME (2013) is based on the archival materials of the so-called Marienfeld project by Austrian anthropologist Josef Weninger. In the 1930s, Weninger and his team of seven anthropologists traveled to Marienfeld (Teremia Mare), a village in the Banat region of Romania, to measure and catalog 1081 people of a German enclave. The project was announced as a method for proving paternity, but it would also provide a genetic-biological basis for discussing various “racial issues.”

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"MASSNAHME" Museum of Natural History Vienna, 2013.

"MASSNAHME" Museum of Natural History Vienna, 2013

The video MASSNAHME was partly shot in Teremia Mare. Dealing with both Foucault’s notion of the medical gaze and his analysis of Las Meninas, MASSNAHME is a reenactment of the archival photographs depicting the researchers at work, each of them focusing on different physical features. By “removing” the subjects of examination in each image, the gaze is turned back onto the scientists and the very instruments of observation, their research stations, and their gestures.

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Nicole Prutsch

"MASSNAHME" Museum of Natural History Vienna, 2013

"This turn of the gaze corresponds to the turn of the methodological. It addresses the tie between the topology of the gaze and the form of the gained knowledge while specifying the common ground where it is most apparent: the measuring and the measurements." – Excerpted from "The Grammar of the Method" by Domen Ograjenšek

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Nicole Prutsch

MASSNAHME, 2013. Still image

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MASSNAHME, 2013. Still image

MASSNAHME, 2013. Still image

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MASSNAHME, 2013. Still image

"MASSNAHME" Museum of Natural History Vienna, 2013

In collaboration with HR Ao. Univ.-Prof. Dr. Maria Teschler-Nicola, Head of Department, Department of Anthropology, Museum of Natural History Vienna

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MASSNAHME

"MASSNAHME" Museum of Natural History Vienna, 2013

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Nicole Prutsch