Filmoteka Muzeum

12 Coca-Cola Tones is one of the first works by Zgraja, where the author tries to underline in a very illusionary way the asynchronicity of the sound and the image. The film comes across as somewhat of a tricky play on the viewer’s perception.

The screen shows monotonous, cyclically repeated sequences of the artist sipping Coca-Cola in front of the camera, and then blowing into the bottle to obtain a sound. Initially, it is difficult to realise the purpose of his gesture. But only when you focus on the tones produced with the bottle, can you notice that the point here is the already mentioned trick.

The relation between the obtained sounds and the amount of liquid in the bottle reveals that the artist creates here in illusion. Image and sound are not congruent, since in reality the tones should become lower as the bottle gets emptier, while the tones in the video are ever higher.

Separating, and thus distinguishing in a way the constitutive elements of audiovisual works, especially the image and the sound, plays a two-fold role here. On the one hand, it is aimed at highlighting the illusion we deal with upon registering reality by means of the medium of film; on the other, by making the viewer aware of this phenomenon, the artist tries to encourage them to build a distance, which is necessary to generate in the audience a participatory mode of reception of his works.

References: (tes),Malowane kamerą “Dziennik zachodni”, Katowice, 14.04.1993; J. Thomas, G. Zgraja, Videoobrazy, transl. S. Zgraja, Galeria Kronika, Art Centre in Bytom, cat. nr 8/93, Bytom 1993.
 

(AH)

Year: 1976
Duration: 3'03"
Language: no language
Source: VHS

© Grzegorz G. Zgraja

Acquisition date: Aug 11, 2011
Acquisition: deposit
Ownership form: deposit