ENG
THE BIRD
Video work, 4’
The video recording of the performance called The Bird represents a new stage in the formal, media reasearch and consideration of the aspects of communication, interraction, synergy in the context of collective existence, work and action. The four-minute-long video documents the quiet meeting of the two artists which is occasionally disrupted by the short, uncomfortable attempts of the bird to fly away. This is not possible, however, because the bird is tied to the skin of the artist’s arm by a very thin chain. The bird becomes the third, and the most important, participant in the definition of the course of action of the scene which culminates in one, tentatively said, moment of verbal communication between the artists, i.e. Sanja’s whispering to Ranko. Equally led by the controlled and the uncontrolled movement of the bird, the silent dialogue of the artists is conducted through the opennes and spontaneity of their reactions in the given situation. Determining the tone of what is at the moment formed as a process of exchange between Sanja and Ranko, the presence of the bird, in fact, personifies not only the nature of an already formed relationship, but also the complexity the human relations can assume. Those relations are shaped and realised in all those visible and invisible flows and shapes of mutuality, immediacy, closeness, manipulation, in the tensions, flexibility, in the verbalised and the suppressed. The symbolic frame of the action is additionally emphasized by the very choice of the bird, the starling, the species characterised by the pronounced sociability and the ability to mimic and vocalise complex sounds. In that context, the myriad of further possible associations and connotations of this performance is opened towards the topics and issues of the dynamics of social space and the implied values of dialogue, empathy, trust and the spirit of togetherness.
Written by: Miroslav Karić