On The BG Track.03
single chanel video installation
by KRASSIMIR TERZIEV
On The BG Track.03 single chanel video installation is a continuation of a series of works under the same title. The whole series is a kind of identity tests. Being an artist, based in Bulgaria very often means to have a permanent stamp with all that clishes created to easy define and interiorise any smal, exotic culture, as appears to be the BG case.
Scenario:
The video tape consists of two types of shots:
1st.: shots from the streets of Sofia.
2nd.: sequences from popular feature films – extracted are only the scenes
from a film, where there are dialogs, concerning Bulgaria, Bulgarian culture,
bulgarian personality (as archaetype), etc.
It starts with a shot from the streets of Sofia, a static panoramic view, nothing extraordinary realy happens. The normal everyday life of the street. The camera slowly zooms in, getting closer to one of the street wonderers, until it focuses on his back. He is wearing a white t-shirt with an image printed on it. The image is fro a feature film, with the subtitlles, concerning Bulgaria. The camera gets into the image.
Cut.
Next follows a film sequence from the movie with the complete dialogue and specific comments on the BG case.
Cut.
The camera goes back to the street and observes again the normal rhitm of the things from the real life. Again the same person appears in focus. Again the camera zooms in his t-shirt, but this time there is a different image, printed on his back – a scene from another feature film with another clishe in the subtitles.
Cut.
...
The entire video material is based on this structure, so five sequences from feature films are juxtaposed with five sequences from the real
Concept:
The starting point for the whole On The BG Track series
For me as an artist, living in Bulgaria, this is an attempt to investigate
how moving image industry, as a mass media is dealing with the “OTHER”, the
“EXOTIC”, the “UNKNOWN” cultures, as appears to be The BG keys. The references
in the movies are always weird, absurd, and irrelevant to any real facts.
In these movies we can see either distribution of the popular cliches, or
fictions, creating from the Bulgarian identity a monstrous, grotesque persona.
The series of color prints is a kind of portrait of Bulgarian character, distributed
in international mass consciousness (the audience in the cinema halls, consumer
home videos).
Based on this concept, I have produced two works:
01. Inkjet print installation, with stills from the films, printed in stripes,
following the different stories in each of the films.
02. Photo – Object installation
5 white t-shirts, produced with printed on the back images, extracted from
the films. I walked arround key sites in Wienna wearing these t-shirts, and
made a photography series out of this performative walk. Then the combination
of the t-shirts and photographs was shaped in an installation piece, presented
during a residency in Wienna.
The special case:BG Track.03:
With the video I would like to put eventualy an end point to the series.
I see it as a possibility to turn the original self-inspection, contained
in the print installation into a counter-reflective process. A kind of reality
check on site. To contradict visualy the real facts with the fictive stereotypes,
fabricated by the mass culture.