The video installation Punishment and Crime documents the activities of a group of hobbyists fascinated with guns and explosives. At a military training ground, in the absence of the military itself, they indulge in a destructive passion – shooting all kinds of guns at car wrecks, blowing up wooden sheds, triggering off unexploded WWII-era artillery shells. Their hobby is a dangerous and illegal one: the explosives and gunpowder are DYI-made, and the explosions are powerful. As the artist recounted, the film’s protagonists, who appear in grotesque pin-up girl masks, ‘play with death’, but their passion is utterly unselfish. The chaotic shooting spree is juxtaposed with images paraphrasing Francisco Goya’s etchings from the "Atrocities of War" series.
Year: 2002 Medium: 7 DVD
Format: various
Acquisition: purchase Ownership form: collection Index: MSN: 4300-12/2008 Acquisition date: Dec 8, 2008 Financing source: Purchased in the framework of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage programme \"Signs of Times\"
See also