Motion Poem

Moving letters are conventionally set in motion by mobile images (film, video). Starting in 1964, Peter Weibel also moved letters around through the viewers, who could put together their own texts from letters, syllables, prefixes, and words. However, the artist was interested above all in the mobility of meanings. For each word encapsulates other words, each word encapsulates many meanings. How can the hidden meanings be brought to light? By typography, for example, bLEIB [stay/body], wORT [word/place], (sc)harfe [sharp/harp], etc. or by technology, for example, a time circuit that temporalizes texts. 
In the »Motion Poems« group of works conceived by Weibel as early as 1966, various letters, groups of letters, or words are illuminated in neon texts by a timer. New meanings within words are thus made visible. The writing is transformed into a word sculpture, revealing anagrammatically new relations between words and their meaning. In the word »Abfälle« [waste], for example, the words »Ball« [ball] »Fall« [fall], »All« [universe], and »alle« [all] can be found.