Karolina Demirović
from Croatia
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Interview: 10 questions
1. Tell me something about your life and the educational background
I was born in January 30, 1966. In 1989 I graduated on the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb under the class of the professor Ferdinand Kulmer. In 1990 I was awarded for achievement in fine arts on the 25th youth biennale in Rijeka and in 1992 I was also awarded on the 23rd youth salon. I exhibits from 1988. Recent years, besides fine arts creativity, I am working on the computational experimental film that is on the exhibitions linked with paintings, and therefore it introduces visitors interactively. On the same place, the visitors can create painting consisted of film frames that is reproduced on the same time as well.
2. When, how and why started you filming?
In 2000 I started to explore deterministic chaos and have decided to make exhibition of paintings based on its principles. Of course, I introduced some of my artistic views in this work. As the paintings were not enough for complete presentation of my idea I decided to develop a computer animation. Therefore, in 2003, the film “Chaos of Complexity†evolved. Since I opened novel possibility of expression I continued to work in the field of computer animation combined with paintings. The final form of the paintings is often created by visitors of the exhibitions in a way to open space for play and creativity for them.
3.What kind of subjects have your films?
Depending on idea I usually leave opened space to abstract expression that always inspires me. The abstract expression gave endless freedom to my artistic work so that in every of my films I tend to make it present at least partially. By that I introduce novel dimension of understanding of a specific idea.
4. How do you develop your films, do you follow certain principles, styles etc?
When I make films I use painting that was already made and then I scan it for the computer processing. The scanned paintings I use as a basic patterns and then they are processed by the tools packaged in the Adobe Photoshop software. The tools are not always the same and are changes due to needs of making the film. In that way I link frames and follow their movement and changes untill I get final version. One of the films evolved when I scanned my face and parts of my body and with that I constructed one story. The music is also produced by different softwares and its purpose is to follow the painting without pretension to be separate peice of work.
5. Tell me something about the technical equipment you use.
In regards to technical equipment I encountered many difficulties. In 2004 I bought computer that was of high quality for that time and its technical performance was enough for me. However, now I need better equipment but have no enough financial resources. If I could find some sponsors I might renew equipment and this will surely have great result on the quality of my works. Unfortunately, I have a lot of ideas which I cannot implement due to mentioned obstacles.
6. What are the chances of new media for the genre film/video in general and you personally?
The new media surely brings good developments in the art and open one completely novel space that, as it seems to me, erases boundaries of classic and ordinary artistic expression and usually connects different arts to one artistic component. Depending on development of technology and consequently the quality, many so called “artistic pieces of work†will show up. In such a situation it could be very difficult to distinguish real artistic value of every single piece. In any case, that would not, however, insuperable. The novel media definitely develop the contemporary art and are agents with which the art could circulate more speedily and represented to the broader community in a very simple way.
7. How do you finance your films?
I finance my films exclusively by myself.
8. Do you work individually as a video artist/film maker or do you work in a team? if you have experience in both, what is the difference, what do you prefer?
On my films I am working only by myself. I have no experience in collective work with other artists but I think that this would be valuable experience where different individualities and creativity could be interlaced. In regards to my independent work I think that, in a way, I have complete freedom to make or to change what I want with no interference of any other artist. Of course, woking in that way brings over me the greater responsibility.
9. Who or what has a lasting influence on your film/video making?
The lasting influence on my work is driven by my artistic experience based on contemporary art that was collected from the years of work.
10. What are your future plans or dreams as a film/video maker?
It might be very difficult to distinguish plans from dreams. I am planning, surely, to pursue my own element of filmmaking as a contribution to the development of contemporary art. I am dreaming on some kind of sponsorship with which I could improve my technical capabilities and skills to perform art in a way that it could be expressed with more quality.