CHERRY TEST
Videoinstallation
Videoinstallation
Legende
6 monitors, 6 DVD // different lengths / loops
2000
Six monitors show six masculine upper bodies respectively centered in an empty white room. The upper bodies are naked. The white underwear, which all six wear is almost cut out of the picture. They grasp into their underwear take out a cherry, eat it and then take aim gathering some momentum as they spit the pit more or less skillfully at the target, the camera. The course of events remains the same: The men enter the screen, eat cherries, spit out the pits and leave the image—then return in a loop.
What actually happened: Miriam Bajtala outfitted each of the six men with a pair of underpants and offered a bowl of cherries from which each could take as many cherries as he wanted and put them in his underwear with the number of cherries corresponding to the number of tries he wanted to attempt. Then he was to hit the target prepared for him. As soon as all of the cherries and all of the pits had been shot, his task was fulfilled.
The artist limits the view of the masculine upper body with the framing of the image. Her rules are strict. The men in the monitors seem to be uniform. The respective manner nonetheless reveals personality. Miriam Bajtala allows the viewers to take part in this school boy game according to her own rules and criteria of selection. With the cherries, underpants and the men of her choice she obtains and organizes what usually remains forbidden … according to her taste. Tastes are of course known to be as individual, different and inexplicable as the variations of spitting out the pits of cherries … (Nora Sternfeld)
2000
Six monitors show six masculine upper bodies respectively centered in an empty white room. The upper bodies are naked. The white underwear, which all six wear is almost cut out of the picture. They grasp into their underwear take out a cherry, eat it and then take aim gathering some momentum as they spit the pit more or less skillfully at the target, the camera. The course of events remains the same: The men enter the screen, eat cherries, spit out the pits and leave the image—then return in a loop.
What actually happened: Miriam Bajtala outfitted each of the six men with a pair of underpants and offered a bowl of cherries from which each could take as many cherries as he wanted and put them in his underwear with the number of cherries corresponding to the number of tries he wanted to attempt. Then he was to hit the target prepared for him. As soon as all of the cherries and all of the pits had been shot, his task was fulfilled.
The artist limits the view of the masculine upper body with the framing of the image. Her rules are strict. The men in the monitors seem to be uniform. The respective manner nonetheless reveals personality. Miriam Bajtala allows the viewers to take part in this school boy game according to her own rules and criteria of selection. With the cherries, underpants and the men of her choice she obtains and organizes what usually remains forbidden … according to her taste. Tastes are of course known to be as individual, different and inexplicable as the variations of spitting out the pits of cherries … (Nora Sternfeld)
