BOLLOCKS

2009, interactive video-installation

About the title:

Searching for the most appropriate English translation for the title of this work, in Macedonian it is named “Tashaci” (Ташаци) - a slang word for ‘testicles’ but also used as ‘getting nothing’ in colloquial speech (in the context of this work used as a metaphor of expectation, ignorance and arrogance), we found that the British ‘bollocks’ has the closest meaning to ‘tashaci’. Of course we based our research on Internet resources and pages like www.sex-lexis.com/Sex-Dictionary or headlines like Balls, Nuts, or Testicles: A Guide to Proper Usage, but finally, a great discovery for us was learning about the British rhyming slang ‘Jackson Pollocks’ used with the same meaning as ‘bollocks’:

Jackson Pollocks: British / Cockney rhyming slang based on the rhyme with bollocks, a slang term for the testicles.

So besides referring to Art is always somewhere else, we dedicate this interactive video work to the great impact that Jackson Pollock made to our society.

Short description:

While the audience is out, the video image shows two sitting figures. When the audience enters, the figures leave.

The work is inspired by and created as a result of the artistic activity in nature Authorial Through Appearance 3, Oraov Dol, Kadiica Mountain, Macedonia. It is inspired by the great intruders (as a particular phenomenon of the Macedonian societal life) and the phenomenon of a strong ‘gravitation’ into Macedonian cultural life (‘gravitation’ meaning ‘inertness’, ‘torpor’ and ‘motionless’).

The second version of the work was created for the purposes of the exhibition Bollocks For Everybody!, held inside and on the windows of Mala Galerija, Skopje, 2010. The exhibition catalogue (Macedonian/English) can be downloaded here.


Bollocks won the price Dragisa Nanevski Award at AKTO Festival of Contemporary Arts in Bitola, Macedonia in 2010.

Interview by Ivana Vaseva: Уметноста е секогаш на друго местo, (Macedonian), Vreme, 25 August 2010

Interview by Darko Aleksovski: Art is always somewhere else, (English), www.furtherfield.org, 13 January 2012

Thanks to: Spase Perovski, Marija Dzunova, Bojan Ivanov and Maja Čankulovska-Mihajlovska