“The central device of Trumbo’s novel is the body of the protagonist, a young American soldier who, incredibly, has lost his face and both arms and legs during combat. Unable to see, speak, hear, smell, or act, he is fully conscious, but seemingly completely without agency. As he struggles to come to terms with his personal tragedy, he strains to communicate with the outside world. The entire book was written without commas, though all other punctuation conforms to established conventions.”

Antonia Hirsch, Komma (after Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun), 2010

“Stripped of semantics, the relationship between viewer and screen becomes clear: stimulus and reaction. The aesthetic of conventional film is a physiology of behaviour, its mode of communication a perceptual event. ‘Ping Pong’ explicates the relationship of power between producer (director, screen) and consumer (viewer). In it, what the eye tells the brain occasions motor reflexes and responses.” [excerpt from here]

[some more information about the series here]

Valie Export, Ping Pong: A film to play with – a players’ film, 1968

The world keeps on resisting having its picture taken […] We no longer have A constant flow of sunlight. Light appears to us As a sequence of transient swirls. Everything around us is lit up for a brief instant. The world picture shimmers. But moments of lucidity and darkness Still alternate too fast. (+)

Igor Savchenko, Fotografie aus Minsk, Berlin. 1994. p.28 [Article here]