film 35 mm, 4'
1972
In collaboration with Antoni Mikołajczyk, Andrzej Jaworski
Recording was made during Art Cleaning No. 1, an event held at the Zero Gallery in Warsaw on 5–6 May 1972. Acting as the instigator and coordinator of the project, Robakowski arranged a still camera set-up, recording around 200 short vignettes of the different participants as they posed for the camera. Choosing not to direct their behaviour in any way, he resigned claims to authorship on behalf of formal objectivity and a participative working model. The film featured both the participants of Art Cleaning as well as random visitors. The idea of replacing classic dramaturgy with the ‘variability of rhythm-controlled recordings’ was informed by the constructivist works of Katarzyna Kobro. ‘Chain structure was Kobro’s long-time concept’, the artist recalled. ‘I used it in the 1972 Recording, where short scenes always show a different person, manifesting their presence on screen. This structural monotony is enriched with the unpredictable gestures of those random actors.’*
* Łukasz Guzek, Pętle czasu – jako monotonia energetyczna, 2007, http://robakowski.eu/tx31.html (accessed 25 June 2017).
