Present Perfect
Summer
Like a beehive...
... we build comb by comb...
... proximity, bone to bone-like...
... I got stung by a bee...
... I thought it hurts forever...
This artwork is a collaboration between Miroslav Žolobanič and me and we have worked on it this year.
It's called Predprítomný čas (Present perfect) and it's a film shot with an 8mm camera
that talks about a fateful relationship not just with each other but also to oneself
and also to some higher entity, for me to God.
We say that I brought the physicality, the performance into the film and he on the other hand
took care of the material background and created primarily the objects for the film.
The film is heavily framed by seasons.
The last chapter is called Mimočas (Outside of time) that tears it away from the cycle.
I like to say that it doesn't begin anywhere nor lead to somewhere.
We work a lot with artistic objects, basically with separate artworks that were made for the movie.
The black stela and in the naked scenes a white curvature that refers to a divine principle.
The last objects are the masks that we put on in the first chapter.
All of these objects are symbolic, minimalistic.
This entire installation is also complemented by this object called Corpus
which is made from bee wax and we created it simultaneously with the movie.
It works very nicely with the lighting, it can be said that it connects to the object in the film.
In my Master's project "Veta potrebuje všetky svoje slová a miestnosť všetky svoje veci"
(A sentence needs all of its words and a room needs all of its things) my obsession became a material for creation.
I picked lights that I remember from my childhood.
On one hand, they seem playful and likable, happy but the way they're manufactured is dangerous,
they can overheat which can cause a fire, their design can be considered as prickly.
An obsession that at first glance seems likable but it's not, ties me and fascinates me at the same time.
I use lights since the beginning of my artistry.
I was drawn by their light, color, and likeability before I realized that they are my obsession.
Even though they look cute they are a travesty of a trauma that I carry unresolved since my childhood.
So, that's a question I'm partially asking with my work.
Am I an artist or is it just an obsession? Do I just use aesthetics for an obsession that I can't get rid of?
And the question is, do I want to get rid of it?
This is my Bachelor's project, I focused on issues of conscious and unconscious hurting of others.
I picked a memory from my childhood when I went with my mom and dad to a carnival and
they were having an argument while I was being dreamy, looking around.
I suddenly saw balloons with animal motifs filled with helium.
I pull my mom towards the balloons and she disciplines me.
And I think it's an outcome of my dad's behavior, that he created a negative emotion in my mom and she passes it onto me.
This is how it gradually carried on from my childhood until my adulthood when I started to realize it.
It eloped into my creation. These sort of simplistic, ugly, dirty drawings which I also use in tattoos.
It's complemented by something that can be considered my symbol - a tattoo machine.
It's an unpleasant noise, an unpleasant pain, self-harm, suffering that turns into therapy by pain.
The installation depicts an attacker, a half-full, destroyed balloon.
This is a mother that watches the situation but can't do anything about it.
I worked with a shadow in here that the attacker casts on a scared child.
And I finished it with a home video from my childhood made by my father.
I re-recorded the video on a camera and I record what my father recorded.
I use zoom for moments that I found interesting, or I use them to guide adults to give them cigarettes,
or do someone wrong, splash them with a hose, and so on.