Coincidentally, during the course of this course, I was invited to take part in a Synaesthesia Day at Brunel University London. Since it was possible to demonstrate only the digital format of the work, I decided to make a video about what it means to feel the colour of the event.
Difficult to explain to a person something that he has never experienced.
If one can imagine how you can feel the colour of emotion, then it is not clear what kind of colour we are talking about. The inner need to share this experience made me look for ways to bring my “emotional colours” into the physical world.
If earlier, for example, during the lockdown, my longing and sadness for the Motherland blurred in my body in red, but after the events of February 24, 2022, blackness swallowed me up. …
I chose the vertical position of the camera - for mobile devices. Social media is the only way left for me to communicate with people who support Russia's war against Ukraine. My closest and dearest people no longer speak the same language with me. Therefore, I see it as my duty to continue to communicate with the audience in a visual language, a language that can still be understood. And if only one person admits that aggression only breeds even greater aggression and begins to reconsider the facts and the situation as a whole, then my work will not be in vain.
My story begins in January 2021, which was marked for me by the accidental discovery of my Synaesthesia. This is the time of closed restaurants, shops and even countries. People are limited in mobility freedom; a person has focused on social networks and his inner space. For me, as an artist, the studio has become the world, where I started recolouring newspapers simply because I had no other materials left.
After reading the morning news, with a cup of coffee, this material was sent for recycling.
I contrast local newspapers with audio news in different languages of the world. Here I want to oppose local life to the global, individual to collective, private to public.
Time passes, seasons change, and I continue to paint over past headlines and rework these news into colourful messages.
Not understanding the languages of the news channels, I continue my life as an artist, existing in my closed world.
I console myself with the thought that I am doing something good for the planet by recycling paper … and world news merges into one audio and visual news feed. … Until the moment when Russia attacked Ukrainian cities.
…
My video work ends with my coffee and newspaper ritual announcing that a German film about World War II won four Oscars.
A significant explanation and addition to this work is my Critical Review "Contemporary Art, Killing The Inner Fascist". Can be found here: https://www.marinawittemann.com/post/critical-review-contemporary-art-killing-the-inner-fascist
Audio used in the video:
· Tagesthemen 23:25 Uhr, 30.01.2021 in German [online] At: https://youtu.be/zSBjOtMaZ78 (Accessed 30.08.2023)
Original Audio:
„…gesagt, aber im Moment ist Reisen leider Risiko.“
Google translation:
“… said, but at the moment traveling is unfortunately a risk.”
· CNN World News Fareed's take: The grave consequences of vaccine nationalism, Jan 31 2021 in English [online] At: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-4Lmp5b0toc&list=PL6XRrncXkMaW5p7muaR2s2IqjouQh4jqS&index=3025&ab_channel=CNN (Accessed 30.08.2023)
Original Audio:
"...with vaccinations ramping up in EU and Britain, with Israel and the UAE racing toward..."
· Le 64' - l'actualité internationale de ce lundi 22 février 2021 sur TV5MONDE. (translated Le 64' - international news for this Monday, February 22, 2021 on TV5MONDE.) in French [online] At: https://www.youtube.com/live/i66ZF0q_F-4?feature=share (Accessed 30.08.2023) 12.02.2021 TV5MONDE France
Original Audio:
„…à respecter la constitution du Niger, le président sortant répond en exclusivité aux questions de Patrick Simonin…“
Google translation:
“… to respect the constitution of Niger, the outgoing president responds exclusively to questions from Patrick Simonin…”
· tagesschau 20:00 Uhr, 10.02.2021 in German [online] At: https://youtu.be/zlMAs456zZo (Accessed 30.08.2023)
Original Audio:
„… EU Kommissionspräsidentin von der Leyen hat unterdessen vor dem Europäischen Parlament Versäumnisse bei der Beschaffung…“
Google translation:
“… Meanwhile, EU Commission President von der Leyen has spoken to the European Parliament about failures in procurement…”
· ကရင်နီ စစ်ဘေးရှောင် ရိက္ခာအခက်အခဲနဲ့ ရင်ဆိုင်နေရ - BBC NEWS မြန်မာ (translated Karenni refugees facing food shortages - BBC NEWS Myanmar) The live broadcast took place on March 31. 2023 in Myanmar (Burmese) [online] At: https://www.youtube.com/live/-HTUmmzNX20?feature=share (Accessed 30.08.2023)
Original Audio:
„… ထိုင်း မြန်မာနယ်စပ် က ကရင်နီ ဒုက္ခသည်စခန်း ကို ရိက္ခာ တင်ပို့မှု ထိုင်း အာဏာပိုင် တွေ က တင်းကျပ် လိုက် တဲ့ အတွက် စစ်ဘေးရှောင် တွေဟာ.…“
Google translation:
“… The Thai authorities have tightened the export of food to the Karenni refugee camp on the Thai-Myanmar border, so the refugees flee the war.…”
· 3,5 года колонии после акции за Навального. Умер муж Елизаветы II. Макаревич о политзаключенных. Прямой эфир состоялся 9 апр. 2021 г. (translated 3.5 years in prison after protesting for Navalny. The husband of Elizabeth II died. Makarevich about political prisoners. The live broadcast took place on April 9. 2021 ) in Russian [online] At: https://www.youtube.com/live/iB0GTvf3s3o?si=CzhClw0lGmcmORoU (Accessed 30.08.2023)
Original Audio:
„… 8 лет тюрьмы попросила гособвинения для участника акции в поддержку Алексея Навального.…“
Google translation:
“… 8 years in prison asked for state charges for a participant in the rally in support of Alexei Navalny.…”
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