Detaching the Camera from the Eye
For many years now, I have been engaging in research into the relationship between my various psychophysical states and the devices with which I carry out mechanical recordings; the film camera, the still camera, the television camera and the tape recorder. One result of this research is a conviction as to the fundamental significance of technological inventions, since they make it possible to transfer those psychophysical states, my temperament and my consciousness to film stock, film and magnetic tape.
Finally, thanks to their nature and the possibilities they afford, they allow me to transcend my notions of the phenomena latent within complex 'reality'; they become an instrument for penetrating the mysteries of the world and one more method of discovering them. They are superb tools, by means of which I can reveal more than I know, see and feel. This often leads to a union, to my adding my nature to the nature of my environment.
At present, what interests me is the problem of removing the functions of the devices that I am using. For instance, in detaching the camera from the eye, there is the potential for a filmed or photographed record of a state of expression utterly uncontrolled by the sense of sight. However, if we are to evaluate, study and measure it, then a moment later, we will still have to appeal to the sense we excluded because what we are dealing with is a strictly visual record. The possibility of comparing two radically different qualities, the mechanical and the biological, strikes me as being of immeasurable interest.
Józef Robakowski (1977)
Translated by Caryl Swift (2016)
Frame from film „I'm going”, 1973
film - performance „Exercise for both hands”, 1976
film - performance „Follow the line” (I'm going, I'm runing, I'm jumping, I'm driving...), 1976
