I Am an Artist

The artist repeats the phrase "I am an artist" approximately one thousand times in succession. What begins as a declaration of identity gradually transforms into something else — the words break down into sounds, lose their meaning, become almost a physical act. Repetition as a method simultaneously consolidates and destroys. The work is part of the series Torn Phrases from an Unwritten Book — a body of video works in which each fragment consists of a single word or phrase repeated one thousand times. Together they form a book that cannot be written linearly in conditions of war and military service — it exists as video, as repetition, as the body of the artist speaking. To declare oneself an artist in conditions of war is not a declaration of privilege but an attempt to hold onto identity within a system that seeks to reduce a person to a function: soldier, number, status. The longer the video runs, the more "I am an artist" sounds not like an answer but like a question. https://youtu.be/3KXF_Pxv4Gw