Working Progress
Version with subtitles available here: https://vimeo.com/254403720/a92882e190
"Working Progress" is an uncanny, surrealist, and sarcastic commentary on day-to-day repetitive jobs, the position of power at work, and the absurdity of the daily rhythm of “metro, boulot, dodo” that frames modern day urban life.
People are social creatures, and part of our goal as human beings is to be useful to our society. Our involvement in the society is often measured by having a job. However, increasingly, the majority of jobs in the current socioeconomic culture treat people as disposable elements of the production process, requiring them to do jobs that will provide no moral satisfaction, and minimal means for survival.
Opening with a happy intention of finding an exciting job, the video takes a rapid turn, entering a surreal world of absurd actions. The ridiculousness we encounter in our work environments is reflected through the playful “sword fight” with a cucumber and a banana, as well as filling and emptying a bucket with wood sticks. The latter is also referencing the futile repetition of the same task. The third part shows the naive conviction of some who, unable to fit in and become standardized parts of the system, assume that to be happy, they need to find some kind of recipe. Whereas in reality what we all get is snake oil (i.e. something with questionable or unverifiable benefit). The work culminates in two caricatural representations of a power figure: a male wearing a golden mask, and flinging food (meat) in his hands, and an old fan sitting on a chair. The clock, as a reference to the start and end of a work day, and the quote from Albert Camus' “The Myth of Sisyphus” repeated throughout the work, is tying together the parts of the video.
Through the unexpected, the piece brings disruption into the classic conceptual pairs of system-individual, work-life, with the goal of creating another dimension of experience that falls outside of these dichotomies.
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Anna GrigorianDirector
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Anna GrigorianWriter
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Anna GrigorianProducer
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Elsa MuzzoliniKey Cast
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Bolek SokolKey Cast
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Mira Elizabeth Fister-TadicKey Cast
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Margarita GrigoryanKey Cast
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Ashod NakashianKey Cast
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Rafael BelizaireKey Cast
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Patrick Jouryan-MartelKey Cast
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Rafael BelizaireVoiceover
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Project Type:Experimental, Short, Student
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Runtime:6 minutes 35 seconds
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Completion Date:April 6, 2017
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Country of Origin:Armenia
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Country of Filming:Canada
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Language:English
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Shooting Format:Digital
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Aspect Ratio:16:9
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Film Color:Color
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First-time Filmmaker:No
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Student Project:Yes
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fliQs b-monthly queer film screeningsMontreal
Canada
June 12, 2017
I am an experimental visual artist, working primarily in the mediums of video art, and photography. Originally from Armenia, I hold a BFA degree from Studio Arts at Concordia University in Montreal, Canada.
General screenings and exhibition history:
SCREENINGS / INSTALLATIONS
2018 "ONE SHOT" International Short Film Festival, Yerevan, Armenia
2018 Fest Miden. Video Art, Greece
2018 fliQs: Queer film night. Energy (jurors, organizers: Mélissa Tamporello, Logan James) Screening at Notre Dame Des Quilles, Montreal
2018 Altered States Intermedia Department Graduating Exhibition, Installation at Eastern Bloc, Montreal
2017 fliQs: Queer film night. Fluidity (jurors, organizers: Mélissa Tamporello, Logan James) Screening at Notre Dame Des Quilles, Montreal
2017 fliQs: Queer film night. Revolutions (jurors, organizers: Mélissa Tamporello, Logan James) Screening at Notre Dame Des Quilles, Montreal
2016 Bad Movie Night (curator: Daniel Rig) Screening at Bad Lunch, Montreal
2016 HI LATENCY (curator: Robert Scalia) Installation at The Mothership, Montreal
2016 Bring Your Own Beamer (curators: Lesya Nakoneczny, Amelia Robitaille, Michael Langiewicz) Installation at Bad Lunch, Montreal
2015 White Noise//Dark Matter Installation at Le Réacteur, Montreal
2014 Movements in the Dark (curator: Catherine Laframboise Desjardin) Installation at Studio 7, Montreal
GROUP EXHIBITIONS
2016 Art to Art collaborative exhibition between Art History and Studio Arts departments in Concordia. Project by Dr. Loren Lerner. Montreal
2016 Centerfold VII (curators/jurors: Brittne Potter, Sandro Papais, Adam Heard Rutledge, Nadim El-Asmar), Montreal
2016 Art Matters x Nuit Blanche (jurors: Hélène Sharp, Timothy O'Donnell Schauer) Mainline Theater, Montreal
2015 Salonesque Montreal Arts Interculturels (MAI)
2013 Through the Window Les Journees de la Culture a Montreal (curator: Natasha Henderson) Fleurbain, Montreal
2013 Pop-Up Art Expo Fringe Festival, GallerieFRINGE MTL, Montreal
2012 Fairytales in the City (curator: Natasha Henderson) Fleurbain, Montreal
2012 The Heat of Summer Montreal Art Center
Employing silly humor, and creating absurd situations, I question the accepted norms, and structures of our society. My shorts do not follow a traditional narrative. Rather, using minimal camera movements, I work with the connection of camera frame and reality inside and outside of it, as well as montage as one of the key creative tools to warp the reality and present it under an unexpected angle.