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K, 2006
Monitor, 4' 12", sound
The video "K" by artist Sladjan Nedeljkovic is made up of two parts: a series of blinking stills coming into a black screen from all sides, and a flowing text, which appears to be a sort of monologue, or "self-chat".
The photos were taken by the artist during a trip to Japan; they show street scenes, parks, situations in the metro, town squares, people in offices or taking their lunch break on a shopping mall plaza. It is hard to tell whether one is seeing staged photos taken for a magazine or whether they are truly scenes of everyday life in a big Japanese city.
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The monologue transcription can be seen as a commentary of the photos. It is made up of passages from Kyoji Kobayashi's short story "Mazelife"*, whose main character is a peculiar man named "K.". K. is paranoid in a Kafkaesque sense. As he is afraid of feelings, he has removed himself from all which is human. He tries to reinvent himself as a kind of robot. Having failed, he creates a computerized God to worship and serve. In this context, the images in the video can be read as a visual text describing alienation between man and the environment, even if the photo material appears commonplace and familiar.
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* published in: Alfred Birnbaum (ed.), "Monkey Brain Sushi", Kodansha International, 1991.
Credits
Dank an: Stefan Gaida, Matthias Glöckl, Mizuki Imai, Karin Krautschick, Véronique Meffre