Brot

A Video demonstration on making something from the same.
A woman looking serious and concentrated cuts the edges of square sliced white bread. She collects the edges in a pile and places the white square centers in a stack as the camera changes our view from her working hands to a 3/4 of her face. Her attitude is distant, somber and there is no hint of personality in her work. Or is there? We wonder what all this meticulous trouble is for. She seems rather normal. Taking the soft white squares she mashes them into a pulp with portions of milk. She makes this mass into an oblong form, working all the time in the most concentrated silence. The handwork is here important. I am reminded of the confectioner who has to have a delicate skilled technique in producing high quality "artworks" that we take (almost) for granted. She then wraps carefully the oblong mass with the cut edges making a crust for this object which starts to look like a big thick "croissant". Toasted slices are scrapped to give a decorative texture which ads to the realistic quality of the "croissant". Voila!

Is this a creative exercise or cultural comment? In American popular culture the sliced bread is very cheap and rather ordinary but nobody can live without it. The europeans don't like it too much and has a negative uncultured image. Is she rebelling and making her own high culture from low culture? Can this simply be making bread from bread or just saying: bread is just not simply bread?

Carlos Varela