Logbook 2006/2007: A Bulgarian Journey is an account of two journeys which took place, as the title says, in 2006 and 2007, a little over a month in all. We were tourists in Bulgaria but also guests in the territory in which EVN is the concern responsible for supplying energy to the consumer. Roughly speaking our trip was in an area that lies in the heart of Bulgaria south of the Balkan Mountains. It begins east of Sofia and extends as far as the Black sea coast. In the south it runs down to the borders of Greece and Turkey. Thus it covers most of the area delineated by the provinces of Plovdiv, Haskovo and Burgas.
The logbook is not only a diary of a process of getting to know a little about the country and the people in it however. We are both artists who pursue research as an artistic strategy and our experiences in regard to the areas, issues and events in which we were interested are not necessarily congruent with either those of the ‘normal’ tourist nor are they those that might occupy a businessman. Although we knew that Bulgaria was on its way to becoming an EU member, we only slowly became aware of the complexity of its multi-ethnic and political past – the events surrounding late 19th century independence from Ottoman rule, the political and cultural relationship of the country to Russia (first Tzarist, later communist), the military juntas/dictatorship of the inter-war period (that were also coming to power all over the rest of Europe too) and the dislocating and rapid changes that other ex-communist countries were also experiencing. So, like all good tourists, in respect of the places we visited and events we participated in we were trying to put the past in the context of the present. In contrast to normal tourists we were also looking for metaphors and markers, for the irregularities of history, where the official past gets in the way of the official present, where hidden histories are in the process of being revealed and previously accepted accounts are up for re-negotiation. Thus we were (and are) concerned with laying down a network of interconnected experiences, views, impressions and information—though unlike EVN which has to ensure delivery of a standardised product as inconspicuously as possible—our product may have bumps and kinks, answering fewer questions than it raises, leaving loose ends hanging in the air. |
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As regards the materials in the DVD ROM, the majority of the photographs and videos were shot by us. We are both artists who use photography (documentary, staged and re-worked) and film/video for individual artworks. Both of us have also produced pieces using found footage. This can be loosely defined as the artistic appropriation of material and its reformulation, usually around a discursive issue. Found footage material, therefore, comes in many different formats: Hollywood feature films on 70mm film stock, official newsreel sequences on 16mm or amateur film material on 8mm, single or super 8, for example. In the DVD ROM we have used some amateur film material of Bulgaria, both (8mm and super 8) in compilation with a documentary intention. Some of it was borrowed from friends, relations or acquaintances, some of it came from our own archives which have been acquired through gifts and flea market purchases. In some cases, such as the shots of the Black Sea coast, it was not possible for us to tell exactly where the shots were made, so their use is exemplary and not necessarily geographically accurate although we did aim for that. The major difference between the amateur material and some of the videos we shot lies in the intention of its makers. Amateur material (films, videos and photographs) is made almost exclusively as a technical method of storing memories, usually as personal or family souvenirs. The film material almost never has original sound. Our intention is more generalised and at the same time more specialised. Amateur material documents a holiday and, with the passing of time, it becomes a historical document showing significant buildings that have perhaps disappeared (such as the Georgi Dimitrov mausoleum in Sofia that was removed in 1999), fashions that have changed, and the continuity or otherwise of public events and ceremonies.
This is also the visual interface between our work and the ‘home movies’, between our photographs and those we found on the flea market in Sofia or dug out from our own collection of old slides. Holiday tourists ‘collect’ the sights (and sites) for their memory banks; we have tried to collected sites of societal transition, to look at social events in a context that aspires to be a little wider than the spectacle itself.
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