wideo, 4’
1994
A single-take recording of a for-camera performance, Acoustic Apple is a modest work characteristic of Robakowski’s ‘own cinema’. We watch him, for four minutes in a tight frame, utterly absorbed in peeling and then consuming an apple. His concentration on the prosaic activity is emphasised by glasses (which he normally doesn’t wear) – the artist almost never takes his eyes off the object. The peeling, cutting and eating of the apple is accompanied by acoustic effects, their amplified sounds recorded by a miniature microphone placed inside the fruit. A banal activity, brought in this video almost to the point of absurdity, reveals its other side – an unexpected audio effect achieved through the use of sensitive equipment. The artist has often commented on how new technologies can help enhance perception and broaden the imagination: ‘You can even put the camera inside man’s body to find out that he has a beautiful organism, endowed with extraordinary image and sound.’*
* Józef Robakowski, ‘Videoconversation1989–2005: Always Looking for the World of the Future’, in Józef Robakowski. Energetic Images. Bio-mechanical Recordings 1970–2005, ed. Piotr Krajewski and Violetta Kutlubasis-Krajewska, Wrocław: WRO Art Center, Polish Audiovisual Publishers, 2007, p. 174.
