Shoum

Katarina Zdjelar’s films critique the ways that language pigeonholes us, or reveals our status or social access. Shoum starts with a black frame. There is no image, only the pop sound of Shout by eighties pop group Tears for Fears. Over the course of the next seven minutes we see how the two men attempt to decipher the lyrics of Shout as though they contain a coded message. Zdjelar’s films of musical-like performances allegorise broad socio-political realities, featuring people from a broad spectrum of society. Through deciphering and decoding, both works create languages that are copies of an original—copies or translations of reality, which force us to question what the matter and mode of speech itself are.