Another notable dimension of Gerz’s work here has been his very use of video as part of the performance’s overall mechanisms, not only as screen transmitting pre-recorded images and sound, but also in the form of closed-circuit television with a camera, recording live... … we had to put together rediscovered bits. For example, for «Pionniers» we only had films taken by Gerz’s camera that filmed the audience. It happened at Heidelberg, Banff and Paris. We had audio recordings of the text in English, French and German. We also had a picture of the stage from Banff, in the dark, with a light that was used by Gerz to light the audience up. With the whole, we were able to recreate the whole performance. We just put an explanation at the beginning of the film.

Georges Heck 2000

Jochen Gerz is not a video artist. For him, video as a medium is, first and foremost, the tool that best allows him to lay down the conditions of his artistic production in a (post) industrial society. Since video was not invented for art, it has become accessible as a tool - in the same way as photography or writing - to be used by the artist as well as the public, with both becoming the consumers of the same industrial product. … This approach which consists in reprocessing different media, is to be understood in a framework of sociocultural use, and so it amounts to a specific approach, which is not aimed directly at art, but at the different ways in which art is appropriated.

Marion Hohlfeldt 2002. Translated by e_CR editors