Victor Burgin's "parzival" in Leuven: Reflections on the "uncinematic"

In commemoration of the destruction of the University Library ofLeuven (Belgium) in August 1914, the projection work Parzival, createdby Victor Burgin (UK, 1941) in 2013, was installed within the rebuiltLibrary. The installation uniquely marked the 100th anniversary ofthe beginning of World War I, which left its profound traces on boththe consciousness and physiognomy of the city of Leuven. Burgin'sreflection on Richard Wagner's opera Parsifal (premiere 1882) combinesthe artist's computer modelled images (a bombed out street, asunset meadow, a Venetian palazzo, ) with citations from RobertoRossellini's Germany Year Zero (1948) and references to works byMilan Kundera, W.G. Sebald and Philip K. Dick.

This publication provides an in-depth analysis of Parzival, a workthat is inspired by the period of seven months that Wagner spent inVenice (1858-1859). Burgin's Parzival raises questions about someof the most fundamental elements in Wagner's operatic work: thelonging for a savior, the complex connection between violence and catharsis,and the presentiment that destruction awaits humanity in thefuture (Götterdämmerung). In an associative manner, Parzival bringstogether various artistic and political features to confront the romanticideal of the ruin with the horrors that might result from such a myth.

In addition, this book contains a reprint of Michel Foucault's essay"The Imagination of the Nineteenth Century" (1980).

Contributors

Geert Bouckaert (KU Leuven), Victor Burgin (University of California, University of London, University of Southampton), Alexander Streitberger (Universite catholique de Louvain), Stephane Symons (KU Leuven), Hilde Van Gelder (KU Leuven)