Kain Karawahn
«this is an emergency/emergency»

In an action carried out on 19 February 1988 during the VideoFilmFest in Berlin, Kain Karwahn brought about the ‘death by fire' of a camera. Holding a dripping petrol canister in his hands, he speeds along a trail of fire towards the lens of a video camera, and drenches it with petrol. The final pictures recorded by the camera are ones of fire, followed by test stripes – all this delivered in slow-motion by the tape before it finally turns black. Audible for a brief time are the camera's dying gasps as it records its own demise. Other, similarly unsettling, camera executions were carried out in ‘Death of a Video Camera' (1991, by steamroller) and ‘Magic Editing Bench' (1994, by saw).