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Mute libraries. Rows and rows of witnesses. Tight lipped. Trembling with the desire to unburden. Testify. Accuse. Seek justice.

Alexander Kluge was no mere chronicler. He was more a philosophical “interpreter of maladies.” All that is wrong disorderly in our understanding of the past, the present and the future that is unfolding like uneven breath even as we seek to understand it. He made films. He wrote books. He made what he called “expositions” which were a blend of art and video and pieces of installed three-dimensional objects using image and text and there was TV programming. He wrote as one possessed with the knowledge of how to straddle the “simultaneity” of historic events in a style that moved intuitively between the anecdotal and the personal to a narrative made up of theory and allusion and prediction. Everything went from a style that had elements of fiction and observation, therefore, documentary and a certain leaning towards the “essayistic”. All of it with restless but accurate abandon. Each insight a rollercoaster ride that shone a light – his own – on all that needed revealing, exposing, illuminating. So yes, a “witnessing” that moved without limitations across the...

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