Issue 28: Movement
Kuba Dorabialski, I Have Some Regrets/I Have No Doubts, 2015, UHD video, 6 minutes
Some thoughts on narrative movement without a destination.
In time‐based expressions, there has always been a stream of works (literary, cinematic, theatrical) in which the narrative is eschewed. It was kind of a big deal in the last 150 years of world literature; from Baudelaire’s aimless amblings to the conceptual circles of W.G. Sebald, stories are told – they move – without the classical markers of narrative. Nothing begins. Some things happen, other things do not happen. Nothing ends. Instances like Joyce’s Finnegans Wake turn the movement of a narrative onto themselves; like an ouroboros the end flows into the beginning, which flows into the ends and so on, ad infinitum. The direction and its destination isn’t nearly as pressing as movement itself. To what end this anti‐teleological meandering? Partly, it was a modernist itch for novelty, but it’s hard to entirely disregard the latent metaphysics in such a practice. To wander aimlessly, never arriving, is to forestall death; to put it off for lack of trying. Through squinting eyes and in the evening light, it may even feel like you’re immortal. The video I Have Some Regrets/I Have No Doubts wants this ever‐moving transcendence too; the voice‐over text stutters and interrupts itself, it makes propositions and instantly retracts and negates them. Like a shark, it moves because it has to; it’s restless and it has the opportunity to talk, so talk it will. And as the text unfolds, the camera moves in a perfect circle, passing its starting point and on again, suggesting a never‐ending movement with no beginning and no end.
Kuba Dorabialski is an artist and writer originally from Wrocław, Poland, currently based in Sydney. His work is interested in language, cinema, sincerity and issues connected to the memory of 20th century Eastern European socialism and the relevance of this memory to contemporary radical political life. His work is primarily video-based.
Kuba has exhibited work internationally and locally and he won the John Fries Award in 2017. He is currently a PhD candidate at UNSW Art + Design.
He is currently working on a large-scale video installation project that explores themes of urban planning, 20th century socialist architecture, Elias Canetti, radical politics in contemporary Eastern Europe, and crowds. It will be shot throughout the Balkans in October of this year, and exhibited at Firstdraft in early 2016.
He has exhibited work in the US and Australia and been involved in a number of community building activities, including performance events, children’s workshops and publishing projects. His writing has appeared in Runway and Try Hard Magazine. He is currently a MFA candidate at UNSW, Art and Design.
Kuba lives in Sydney.
www.kubadorabialski.com
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.
Runway Journal acknowledges the custodians of the nations our digital platform reaches. We extend this acknowledgement to all First Nations artists, writers and audiences.
Runway Journal is assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body.
Runway Journal receives project support from the NSW Government through Create NSW.