WittgensteinTractatus

Forgacs’ Wittgenstein Tractatus is composed of seven short video essays that refer to one of Wittgenstein’s most influential works, Tractatus Logico Philosophicus, first published in 1921. Each of Forgacs’ brief essays — set in motion as a torn photograph comes together, only to break apart again — relates to one of Wittgenstein’s philosophical propositions. Black and white home movies from the early twentieth century are accompanied by voice-overs and written texts from Tracatus, in Hungarian and English, and a somber, lyrical score. Scenes of bourgeois life are haunted by forebodings of the future. Drawing upon the disjunction between language and image, Forgacs creates a symbolic illustréation of Wittgenstein’s theories of logic, language, reality and representation.