Zuza Banasińska

VIDEO: THRILLING!

MILLENNIAL NOSTALGIA FOR 1980S POP MUSIC VIA UNITY ENGINE REINVENTS MOST POPULAR MUSIC VIDEO OF ALL TIMES

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We are excited to present an excerpt of Thrilled to See You, a 2018 video work by Zuza Banasińska, whose amazing Road to feelings is currently featured on VRAL.

Thrilled to See You is based on Michael Jackson’s iconic music video Thriller (1983), featuring one of the most imitated choreographies of all time. To create her video, Banasińska replaced all human dancers with computer-generated characters that are moving rhythmically on a stage decorated by their own flesh - the flattened textures of their "skin". Banasińska is comparing the original performers, who pretend to be living dead, with avatars, i.e., "bodies without a soul" - perhaps, real zombies.

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Matteo Bittanti

This is a Patreon exclusive article. To read the full text consider joining our Patreon community.

VIDEO: DANCING IN CRIMEA

MILLENNIAL NOSTALGIA FOR 1980S POP MUSIC MERGES WITH HISTORY OF CRIMEA IN AGE OF DISRUPTION AND UPHEAVAL, COURTESY OF UNITY

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We are happy to share an excerpt of Zuza Banasińska's I didn’t go to Crimea and all I got were these dance moves, which is related to the larger project I didn’t go to Crimea and all I got was this alien message (2018). Made with Unity, this short video features classic hits from the 1980s: Dire Straits’ “Money for nothing”(1985), Billy Joel’s “We didn't start the fire” (1989), and Tears for Fear’s “Everybody Wants to Rule the World” (1985).

As Banasińska explains in an email exchange:

I didn't go to Crimea and all I got were these dance moves was a ‘supplement’ to I didn't go to Crimea and all I got was this alien message, actually made before the main video, when I was searching for ways to ‘animate’ the space of the album through digital dance moves to songs that the author of the album could have listened to as Perestroika happened and western pop culture was starting to reach the USSR.

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Matteo Bittanti

This is a Patreon exclusive article. To read the full text consider joining our Patreon community.

EVENT: ZUZA BANASIŃSKA (AUGUST 19 - SEPTEMBER 1 2022, ONLINE)

ROAD OF FEELINGS

digital video (1920x1080), color, sound, 8’18”, 2022, Poland

Created by Zuza Banasińska

A teenage girl’s room. When she ingests a handful of pills, it start to grow. Normally, as she works out, 1,2,3... 1,2,3... 1,2,3... her muscles can carry stones. Now, they are literally carried. The room walks with her as she touches the ground. In the rhythm of the workout, the walls open up and start chewing the world. Road of Feelings is a video animation created with the Unity 3D engine as part of the artistic collective Ellen Muscle’s LARP (Live Action Role Playing). The scenario was based on a queer-feminist narrative, set in a world where extreme muscle growth is encouraged, especially for teenage girls. Every girl has to take pills that enhance body musculature. Some teens begin to overdose, shortly discovering that the phenomenon enables them to produce hybridized connections. Those hybridizations happen through the muscles themselves. Teens start building and experiencing global networks between things and beings.

Zuza Banasińska (b. 1994) is an audio-visual artist making video-based environments. In her works, virtual and real elements are hybridized beyond distinction in an effort to move from representation towards affective mapping. She studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow, Universität der Künste in Berlin, and Sandberg Instituut in Amsterdam. In 2020, she won first prize in the Polish Experimental section at Short Waves in Poznań and On. Art in Wrocław. Her works have been shown at the U-Jazdowski CCA in Warsaw, Dům Umění Mesta Brna in Czech Republic and Blindside in Melbourne. She lives and works in Amsterdam.

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