Peter Weibel

In the photo sequence »Metaphysisches Gedicht für einen Amphioxus« [Metaphysical poem for an amphioxus], each photograph depicts one letter of the alphabet, the one that is hidden by the finger touching the typewriter keyboard. The photo series results in the word sequence »Mensch [human] – Maschine [machine] – Interaktion [interaction].« Since writing with a typewriter is a human–machine interaction, representation coincides with reality. Thus the words represent what you see and what happens. The metaphysical poem thus becomes readable even by an amphioxus or lancelet, a »fish-like« marine animal that has neither skull nor brain. What is physics to humans is metaphysics to an amphioxus.