artist's statement

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Since 2004 my work is concentrated on video as a primary medium, conceptually re-evaluating simple act of observing, aesthetic experience and emotional response. Phenomenological observation is the key method, whatever happens in front of the camera lens, may it be an unprepared reality or a staged situation. Certain anthropological interest is at work here, where economies of desire and pleasure are explored. Knowing or unsuspecting subjects have often been observed through the lens of my camera, people in public situations oblivious of the camera's presence. The motivation for shooting is meditated and explored in the selection of a subject and considered in the process of editing. Some recordings have been left untreated, "as is", some have been manipulated in a lengthy editing process to yield a complex crossing between the real and the emotional response, that the image evokes.

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For many of the staged works I propose label "situations" as I see them to be an interaction between an element that has been prepared beforehand and the unpredictable element of public participant, that enters the situation and is confronted at a very visceral level. Other works have been staged as private performances created only for the camera. Human body, as a battlefield between the psychic and the political is examined, explored or exploited. Video then becomes a tool for "reporting the findings" although what has been found is only the actual ambiguous fact of an image. When presented, it again enters a communication with a viewer.

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Video closes recorded situations on an ever-repeating loop where viewer may enter and leave at any point. Time of video in a gallery situation is traditionally circular, as opposed to the narrative linear time of a movie. Repetition is a ritual in which the moving image is mortified, in the process of becoming a fetish it becomes an object to be owned, cherished and admired. My works share certain qualities with photography, they are still images in motion, as if a process of waiting for the right moment to take a snapshot has been recorded into the indifferent memory of the camera.

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I have also ventured into the realms of audio, with emphasis on sampled sound. This interest comes naturally, as video is 50 per cent sound, sometimes even more. Sound has also been explored as a powerful medium capable of creating an immersive environment in several sound installations.