take place Gallery 68elf, October 4th till 27th 2002
from Artur Tajber to Boris Nieslony
 

_______________________________________________ans.

MY POSITION:

From the very beginning (I mean from mid-seventies) I started both practices together – professional photographer practice and performance artist practice.

As a photographer I was working for myself (for my own art), as well as for the others, especially for Tadeusz Kantor Cricot2 Theatre, which was relatively close to performance art.

My first performance-like activities was closely linked to photography. I was shown my first “actions” only by the medium of photography. Maybe because I was starting as a post-conceptual artist. I realized some scenarios punctuated by photographs. Action was represented for the audience by long cycles of photographic images.

From the second part of eighties I started to use video as an important medium of my art-practice. Video image replaced the function of photography in my performances too. 
From the end of eighties I am using a digital image and digital sound simultaneously. Video recordings of my previous activities become to be the matter and material of the new ones.

From my own, personal point of view, there is not a big difference between classical photograph and digital technique; I also don’t see a big distance in between photography and video, image snapshot and sound snapshot, snapshot and recording or sampling. The most convenient term is “time sampling” I suppose.

REFLECTION:

Photography or rather more general – recorded image & sound – is a very important component of performance-like activity. What is the nature of such relationship? I suppose that it lies in memory or rather mnemonics.

Photographer versus Performer
It’s the most difficult and conflictogenous relationship. From the very beginning I preferred rather a photo-camera itself than a photographer. The presence of the photographer during the performance is inconvenient. I suppose that the best photographs are rather the result of a coincidence than collaboration.

The Art of Memory
Recollection of performance act and conceptualization (ex post as well as the process of preparation) are realized using “icons”. An icon is an image (strong image) or a sound, or another “strong” stimulus recognizable by senses. Those “icons” are represented or might be represented – among other things - by “photographs”. By this way we are thinking about performances (past and future) by “snapshots”. The Theater of the Snapshots is the same as The Theater of Memory. It’s a characteristic of human imagination.

Snapshot versus continuity
In beginning of eighties I realized a number of experiments using photographic paper and a single negative image (or just a physical object), making large scale non-camera prints during the performance-like action. The negative form was moved over the paper creating more or less legible images. In between clearly visible representations (when negative stops) I had long areas of unrecognizable “fog”. I think that each performance might be analyzed by this way. When we have a full recording (e.g. video or movie) of the temporal piece, we have a long sequence of snapshots, but only some are potentially significant. Of course, position of the camera is also important.
The “full recording” in relation to the single snapshot is richer (consist of many), but in fact the difference lies in frequency. 
To increase in frequency doesn’t mean “complete”.
Significant, clear, doesn’t necessarily mean “sharp”.
“Snapshot” doesn’t necessarily mean “photograph”.
Awareness realize itself in the process of sampling.
Performance as well as each human activity is dense. Documentation is diluted.