Monika Karczmarczyk is a Polish artist based in Berlin, who uses a multitude of digital and performative techniques that result from intensive research. At the center of this exploration is the human body and how it behaves and changes in social interaction with others or embedded in architectural conditions.
video, 2022
In Choreography of Care (2022), two women perform a dance composition inspired by the gestures and movements of nurses in hospitals. Tenderness, care and sacrifice are the leitmotif of the dance performance. The stage is a barren room that is only open at the top. Light penetrates from above; the light source remains offstage – an allusion to the operating theatre and to a metaphysical beyond at the same time.
Collaboration: Tamara Zsófia Vadas, Júlia Vavra
video, 2021
The video shows a digitally generated bandage floating in an undefined space. The movement of the bandage and its unfurling plane brings to the fore the shape of an invisible hand. The choreography of the moving coil is based on instructions on how to bandage a hand. A similar process is also performed with boxers prior to placing their hands inside boxing gloves. During the recording, a female voice reads a text that is a paraphrase of a quote from Derrida’s essay: “And for better and worse, we are left holding signifiers, detached, asking what they mean and where’s the body. The time of interpretation, in between time, before we know what it means, signaling something but what?”
Animation: Sebastian Sebulec
Sound: Julia Szostek
video, 2017
The point of departure for the project was based on FBI instructional films from the sixties on how to use firearms.
The video work portrays the operating principles as well as instructions for using the Glock 17 model, 9×19 caliber. The presentation is performed by a former Special Services officer.
The fragments of the instructional video emphasize the subtlety of the relationship the body maintains with a manipulated object. The slow movements of the hand, which gently strokes the body of the weapon, showcasing individual points, contrasts with the knowledge we have of the object’s purpose. Dissonance is produced in this tenderness and certainty of movement towards the object, the tension between the choreography and the potentiality of firing/using the tool according to its application.
video, 2018
The project is based on the information found on the online forum: do broni.pl in the thread of Eagles of the Earth Łomżyńska, which aimed to “create a base of left eagles produced and sold by engravers from Lomza” and was made during a workshops in Łomża (Poland).
performance + live streaming, 2016
A site-specific project in collaboration with Laura Grudniewska, implemented in cooperation with the Museum of Wola in Warsaw.
The concept of climate in museums is particularly significant. The basic preventive action, providing protection of collections, is to control the microclimate parameters inside the building. The microclimate is, therefore, part of the museum’s structure. Klimawechsel (climate change) is the injection of Wola’s climate into the walls of the museum. Imperceptibly generated, the smell of the local specialty – fried chicken liver – is pumped into the ventilation system of the museum. The work circulates inside the building’s structure.
video, 2016
Mimicry – a protective behavior occurring in animals based on defenseless animals imitating animals capable of defense by taking on their shape, color, and behavior. In plants, the phenomenon is based on plants imitating their surrounding environment. The image of young women training in order to fit their bodies into a body ideal created by culture is part of the phenomenon of cultural mimicry. Women repeating a gesture, working on their appearance, and possessing an attitude with the principles of etiquette are all a kind of protection.