Pioneer
/3
- Pioneer
- 1997
- video, color, sound
- 4min, 7sec
Pavel Brăila likens the late-1990s artistic atmosphere in Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet states with that of the period of 1968–1971 in the West (and to a certain extent in the East, as well). A sense of community, experiments in the midst of nature, a fascination with technology, and the imaginary quality associated with the exploration of outer space are indeed recognizable traits in both of these timeframes, as they are easily decipherable in the documentation of the era’s artistic events. “Pioneer” is the seemingly accidental video recording of a performance in which the artist, dressed up in paper, unrolls a 105-meter-long roll of paper onto which he steps, leaving traces of mud on its white surface. His appearance is that of a cosmonaut, exchanging jokes with the crowd and friends accompanying him for his liftoff, with the unfolding paper thus becoming a launchpad disappearing into the forest. R.V.