The nudity of the artist generates a voyeuristic mood, emphasised by the flashlight penetrating the night, combined with the restricting, separating, excluding connotations of the police tape that resonates to the gender-issues being the main theme of Kolatt’s body of work. The scene was shot at a bamboo plantation, a symbolic choice as well: at first glance it might recall idealistic notions of freedom traditionally related to nature, but in fact the young bamboo sprouts are standing in meticulous order in a controlled environment: their whole lifespan has been predesigned.
The work’s narrative reflects on the intricate relation between the individual and society, how one copes with living in a narrow, restricting system by creating an obedient, socially acceptable alias; how this persona takes over your private self; and how one tries to fight back repeatedly, in a recurring loop that eventually causes a third identity to come alive: a split personality that is perceived as troubled, instable and possibly dangerous to society.
"(...) In the video "Untitled (Cordon)", we are in a forest of young bamboo shoots at night, following at a distance a young, naked man unravelling a roll of red and white cordon tape. He winds a path through the woods to create a layer of barriers before enveloping himself in the tape. Watching the bizarre ritual of the performance unfold, the area he sets out seems arbitrary; but within the certainty of his gesture is the assertion that we delineate and define our own boundaries of significance." — Chris Fite-Wassilak, 2013