Stöhnender Stein. Nicht-humanes Gedicht

The moaning stones originally had a battery-powered tape recorder with an endless loop of the moaning of a sick person concealed inside them. The tape recorder was connected to an electronic thermal circuit and a gas container. The circuit reacted automatically to temperature changes. If the temperature fell, the phosphorus gas cooled down – at night for instance – the gas container contracted and switched on the tape recorder via a coil spring. When the temperature rose again in the morning, the gas and the container expanded and the tape recorder was switched off by the coil spring. In 1969, Peter Weibel hid one of his moaning stones in the Vienna Stadtpark. The passers-by heard a moan and called the police, who had the artist arrested for »disruption of public order«. Later, Weibel planned to lay moaning stones along the bank of the Danube from Vienna to Budapest to create a nocturnal moaning riverbank.