Mladen Bundalo
video artist from Bosnia – Herzegovina
biography
VIP – VideoChannel Interview
Video title:
Fear Smelting
An old lady in a shamanist mood was dissolving the members of the group from their fears. The atmosphere of the ritual was going towards the persistent mentioning of a surconciesness and simbolism which was provoking, in a very kinky way, certain psichological reactions in the “patients”. Ritual repetitioning of single actions, like pronouncing the name of the mother of the patient during the ritual or the grotesque sound of the melted lead in reaction with the water, influence the condintion of the subjects involved in the ritual. The figures produced in the end are the main scope of the ritual. They present us our fears in a very material form. The old lady turns the figures in her hands and read from them the fears of the past, of the present and of the future. The time and the destiny of the artist seem to be capturated in this diabolic piece of metal laying in the hand of this socially recognized witch. The fear. The placebo seems to be playing its part of the role with satisfaction. The thing the old one is going to say will become a part of your mind for your entire life. It doesn’t matter if and how much you believe in this type of phenomena. What is important is that in front of you there is a ritual old most probably as the very fear, perfectioned by generations to swollow you more easily into its own system of traces and meanings. The mind which had on disposal only scientific evidents on the apsurdity of the similar rituals has very little chances to oppose successfully to the very complex system of levels and associations that fear can offer. The fear is omnipresent. The incertainty of this statement also makes you fear. The fear moves easily into and out of any form of existence and producing some brand new forms.
Compositions of the kindreflect to all society with more or less simplifications of the general situation. All the cultural discurses, from the politics to the art are made by using the fear as a platform for the manipulating systems of all levels of society.