Németh, Ilona: Morning (2003)

Ilona Németh’s video has an easily describable, almost banal narrative; it shows a woman’s morning routine in a common environment. She has breakfast, reads the paper at home, leaves her house, goes shopping. All these activities are performed with a certain indifference which is in a sharp contrast with one peculiar element in the video, the constant presence of two body guards dressed in commandos’ garment with concealed faces. The ambiguity that appears in the work does not only stem from the juxtaposition of the everyday with the odd, but also from the inexplicable ubiquity of the guards since the reason for their constant presence remains unclear. There is no way the spectator is able to decide whether they are there to defend the woman from violence or to control her. Paradoxically, the guards symbolize violence, yet they are meant to defend people from physical attacks. The invisible source of violence gets even more menacing when we bear in mind that the woman is protected or controlled even at home, the site which is perhaps falsely considered to be the safest of all. (Katalin Timár)