Sebastjan Starič

In the video works of Ema Kugler, mythology is inscribed in the rituals of everyday life, this time it is the theme of Hydra with many faces. It is illustrated by individual scenes with actors in leather costumes (the author's creations), which restrict their movement and thus already emphasize the separation of man from nature. The last trace of connection - the ritual relationship between man and bull, which is again based on human cruelty to animals - ends with blood, which on a symbolic level also pervades the whole image.

When the water supply cuts out in a small town, turning the dystopian society into a war zone, three hustlers struggle to find the real enemy before it's too late.

Urbanity is finally erased by mythical rituals, which is determined by the very title of the video film: menhir, an upright stone block from the Neolithic, which was used for sacral rites. Man and woman are Adam and Eve, created in front of us by electronic transformation (morphing) and marked by blood. This element also marks all other elements of the video image: the murder of an individual by the menhir or trinity (politics, church, army), the bodies of the dancer. Blood, murder and death are overcome by only the second basic element: the stone, which is flooded with blood the very next moment. The fight of natural elements is also served by electronic tricks that turn power holders from flesh and blood into stone and wrong.

The game of chess as a symbolic and performative practice forms the core of this video, which is essentially determined by staged scenes, reworked mechanical figurines and the performance of the main protagonists. It differs both from the high-tech video spot and fast editing.

For the End of Time is a film about the mind… a film about the body and our inability to merge these two entities which are shaping a form of civilization known under the term “human”. A human is not a being unto itself. A human is a construct… a civilization-related coding of a certain precise time and place. A human is not a uniform creature. A human is a split between many things… but the worst is the split carried inside… that between the mind and the body… How can we feel others, if the only universe that an individual truly lives in and feels is his or her own universe? How can you feel for the other… How can the other feel for you? Only as much as the pain of the other resembles yours – thus as a reminiscence of one’s own pain. This is the only way. For the End of Time is a film on a quest… for the eternal longing “to find the real thing.

A satire look at the 1991 Slovenian war of independence.

The film tells the story of the Old Faith in the Soča Region. While the time of the religion’s origin remains unknown, the only documented fact about this is that in 1331, the bringers of a new religion (Christianity) came from Čedad, initiating a violent Christianisation of the Soča region. This was a long and extremely violent process.