Play and Ritual in Bozhkov's Works

After viewing Daniel Bozhkov’s presentation it seemed that a lot of his work is focused on elements of social interaction both with those that he encounters throughout the course of his performance or activities and through those that he reaches through his use of various forms of presentations, media, and distribution. In addition to, or as a result of these interactions several different aspects of ritual and play become involved. With his work involving the making of pretzels in Bulgaria and his interest in the language of the country in connection with his mother’s use of aging terms, Bozhkov explores different rituals, traditions and processes of the Bulgarian culture. His choice to do a work involving this particular source of food demonstrates his intention to investigate and modify a ritual that is so ingrained in the everyday culture and shows that through his involvement in the creation of this food he intended to use it as a platform for his research and for his presentation of his ideas toward the culture. The video that was displayed showed how he had to learn the traditional technique of making the pretzels and how he approached making the different pretzel shapes from the words that he chose from his mother, therefore exploring the use of language within the area and the shift in meaning of words and terms in a language as generations pass. He applied a similar subtle to change to the pretzels that he made and presented them by selling the pretzels in the normal way that they are sold in that city.

In terms of play it seemed that many of his works had a humorous aspect to them particularly the Hemingway perfume and the DNA yogurt, which turned the process and presentation of these products into a performance. With both of these works Bozhkov demonstrated the process from the beginning idea to the finished product and to the distribution of this product or object to the public, presenting the different steps that are taken from the various aspects of assembly to different means of sale to the customer. By producing these seemingly absurd items according to these common rules of production Bozhkov turned this process into a game where he both follows the rules while simultaneously subverting them by making bizarre or eccentric objects and by using the black market and on the street sale, all of which go against the typical ways of creating and distributing a product.