Barbara Konopka - "Interferences" (1985)

"Interferences" - a film by Barbara Konopka - depicts a number of self-manipulative interventions of the artist on her own body. In the accompanying text of the work, the artist states: "This form of self-manipulation manifested one's own autonomy towards external, social manipulation practices" (Konopka 2000). At the forefront of Konopka's mind was the socio-political reality of Poland after the period of martial law, still replete with police brutality and military dictatorship propaganda.

Directly after the making of "Interferences", Barbara Konopka, together with Zbigniew Libera and Jerzy Truszkowski, established the Sternenhoch group, whose activities included painting pictures, playing concerts, organising happenings, as well as other forms of actionism.

The performances, in addition to video realisations carried out by the group members, have drastically contemporized issues of the body. Worth mentioning is Intimate Rituals by Libera, or Truszkowski's realisations where the artist carves out symbols of political or religious authority on his body with a scalpel.

Another important layer of the film's meaning is the aspect of reflection on the nature of the selected media. Konopka's film is a specific trans-medial story about the differences between mechanical and electronic media. When the artist transcribed "Interferences" onto a digital medium in 2000, she decided to leave the sound of a running film projector on the sound track; she also tried to highlight the materiality (the specific characteristics of the material) of the celluloid film.

After its transposition onto an electronic medium, the film (super 8 mm) gains, according to the artist, yet another dimension, and this is the reason why it has been supplemented with a pulsating effect (quasi strobe), which stresses the phenomenon of emission: medial conditions of screen image reception. The effect of this "pulsating white light" adheres the viewer to the fact that that the TV screen is a lamp emitting its broadcast into the viewers body (as opposed to a cinematic projection), and allows the artist to accentuate that, for example when watching (or being watched through) TV, the viewer's body - as the TV projection screen - is being constantly bombarded with a large number of extra-conscious stimuli.

This type of medial conditioning of TV is often used by advertisers, who through image flickering or pulsation effects, address our bodies (making us follow the events on the screen - commercials) rather than our conscious decisions. Revealing a source of potential manipulation, the artist writes: "Strobe effects used in the film act subliminally on the viewer's body, the viewer becomes the object of manipulation parallel to the author's body which the viewer is observing. The manipulation of the body takes place in the presentation layer, as well as in the sphere of the viewer's contact with this work (in the sphere of "dyspozytyw"). The character of this work determines that it can only be presented from a monitor, i.e. not using a projector." (Barbara Konopka 2000).

These two aspects, the issues of the body and the reflection on the nature of the selected media, have always been present in the artist's work. Currently, in her cycles of digital photographic images, Konopka picks up on the problem of body identity and perception changes in the context of cyberspace. The aggression against one's own body (one's own sexual attributes), included in "Interferences" finds its particular culmination when the figure of the Binary Man is introduced (a cycle of digital photographic images Illuminations On-line Binary Man) - "an extra-sexual being" (ultimately divested of sexual attributes).

INTERFERENCJE - film super 8mm, 5 min. 1985

Realizacja (performance, montaż, dźwięk) – Barbara Konopka

Kamera – Jerzy Truszkowski

“Interferencje” – performance z nurtu body-art pierwsze publiczne wystąpieniem B.K. na „Biennale Sztuki Nowej” w Zielonej Górze 22 listopada 1985 roku. Performance ukazywał manipulacje własnym ciałem (piersiami, potraktowanymi jak marionetki poruszane za pomocą nitek) jako manifestację własnej autonomii wobec zewnętrznych, społecznych praktyk manipulacyjnych. Na bazie tego żywego działania powstał film (super 8). W 2000 roku został przeniesiony na cyfrowy nośnik (mini dv).

W procesie montażu zachowano pierwotną kolejność i długość ujęć i surowy charakter rejestracji. Pewne manipulacje materiałowe, nawiązanie do doświadczeń kina strukturalnego ma na celu podkreślenie cech medium filmowego z jego maszynerią. Elementem łączącym ujęcia, a jednocześnie będącym pomostem między nośnikiem fotochemicznym, a elektronicznym są wygenerowane sekwencje mrowiącego białego światła (emitowanego, a nie odbitego jak w filmie).

Ten nowy aspekt realizacji uwzględnia i uwypukla fizjologiczne (cielesne) oddziaływanie projekcji z monitora na ciało widza, które w tej relacji jest ekranem, na który wypromieniowywany jest przekaz (film z 1985 roku). Ze względu na te uwarunkowania efekty stroboskopowe użyte w filmie oddziałują podprogowo na ciało widza, on sam staje się przedmiotem manipulacji równolegle do oglądanego przez niego ciała autorki. Manipulacja ciałem dokonuje się w warstwie przedstawienia jak również w sferze kontaktu widza z tą pracą (w sferze dyspozytywu). Ze względu na charakter realizacji jest ona przeznaczona do prezentacji z monitora, a nie z projektora.