Filmoteka Muzeum

Energy Hunters is a video, which can also be presented as an audio-visual installation. It was created during Smoleński’s stay at the 18th Str Art Center in Santa Monica in 2011. The members of the noise rock band Foot Village were invited to participate in the film. Long sequences presenting the Californian landscape and musicians dressed in balaclavas are interspersed with a black screen. During these moments we can hear a sound on the verge of singing and shouting, fragments of Foot Village’s music.

In Energy Hunters the sound of the drums, the only classical instrument used by the musicians, is more of a symbol than of a tool. If there is a sound coming out of them, it’s the lyrical sound of cymbals. The visually sublime film with no clear plot keeps the viewer with a sense of uncertainty and anxiety. The specific atmosphere of sublimity seems to lead to the climax, unleashing energy through layers of untold events, electrifying the viewer to even a greater extent.

(Catalogue of the ING Polish Art Foundation Collection)