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/ From Monument to Market ↑
Retransmission
title
1979-1983
year
Zygmunt Rytka
author
synopsis

A work from the political turning point of 1979 – 1983, in which an isolated artist gives testimony on the times and his own emotions.  To do this, he uses a normal TV program that comes through to him just like to any other viewer – except that Rytka immediately reinterprets it, ceases to be a viewer and instead becomes a conduit for retransmission.  He filmed the program doggedly, frame by frame, for several years, and as a result was able to distill the very essence of the esthetics of the propaganda permeating the TV news.  The period he filmed was of major importance not only for Poland, but for the future of a significant part of Europe as well: the birth of Solidarity, the struggles with the Communist authorities, martial law – a mishmash of slogans and propaganda ploys, a ballet of announcers in military uniforms.  The artist’s own commentary is introduced through a highly eloquent procedure: symbols painted on a pane of glass in front of the television screen compete with the official iconography to  become the primary layer of the work, an integral element of its final form.

video
20:00
16mm/VHS

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