By performing the song Je Suis Malade, the protagonist/child immerses itself in the lyrics, but has no direct relationship to it since it is not able to conceive the concepts of the story that it engages in. The language is most likely foreign to the performer(s) and they do not understand the meaning of the words. The sense of artificiality/alienation is omnipresent since the feeling of naturalness or spontaneity is not accommodated. The figure of the child does not gaze at the onlooker, so there is no sense of communication being exchanged. It is through these mechanisms that Kaludjerović is able to connect this video and make a direct relationship to the large opus of his previous work that engage in similar concerns. The performance of the child is ritualized, making parallels with the stimulation of youthful innocence for purposes of visual consumption. There is a conceptual link between the girl’s singing about being ill and the state of malady in our globalized society, which is deeply immersed in consuming to the point that effects start to bear resemblance.
The video installation, projected on a transparent fabric, (1m 70cm high and 50cm wide) acts as a freestanding sculpture, suspended from the ceiling on fine nylon. Due to the total darkness of the space the child appears almost real and one could imagine that in fact it exists in space. The viewer has a natural tendency to walk around the piece, only to find out that the front of the girl is replicated on the back as well. Kaludjerovic subtly comments on the surface culture of our society, which shows only a front, rarely exposing what exists behind the exterior.
The ghost like quality is omnipresent due to the transparency of the material that the video is projected on so the image gets reflected on the floor creating a flow of color that generates a very painterly sensatio