Karolina Breguła
Video Camera
The film Video Camera by Karolina Breguła is a recording of performance in which the artist’s gestures accompany instructions for using a video camera that are read out, off camera, in a dozen or so European languages. This resembles the actions of a flight attendant accompanying the recorded safety instructions before a plane’s take off. The artist, despite growing fatigue, maintains a professional attitude, smile, and a full commitment to the work performed.
The video can be understood as a humorous commentary on making films. For example, it seems funny to show the work of a video camera as if it were a crank-operated camera, or the fact that some parts of the user manual and gestures do not correspond. However, the video is more than a gag. The artist demonstrates that when it comes to human activities, body language recorded on video is much more informative than spoken language. This representation of differences between these languages emphasizes the importance of choosing the right medium when trying to comprehensively convey particular content.
Karolina Breguła creates films, photographs, installations, performances, and actions in urban space. She graduated with a photography degree from the Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź, where she also obtained a PhD in film at the Faculty of Cinematography and Television Production. In her socially engaged work, Breguła addresses the ways in which art influences our daily surroundings. In her films, she reveals the diversity of existing social norms and the resulting tensions. The artist also created an online project – Biuro Tłumaczeń Sztuki [Art Translation Agency], whose aim was an often subversive, unusual interpretation of contemporary art.