January 2, 2021, by Tosh Berman

 “From a bumbling citizen through the poetry of the machine to the perfect electric man.” As the leader of The Kinoks, I’m obsessed with how the world is seen or perceived by my fellow citizens. My buddy, Sergei, came from the theater, but I’m a believer in filming life as it happens. I see the camera lens as my second eye. “I’m an eye. A Mechanical eye. I, the machine, show you a world the way only I can see it.” The world we perceive is always put in a neat narrative. I have been told countless times that there is a beginning, a middle, and an end.” I understand that, but I can’t see why not start off with an end, and then a beginning, and end with the middle. The film drama is the opium of the people… down with bourgeois fairy-tale scenarios…long live life as it is!”

I spent a lifetime photographing girls because, to me, I fit right into that world. I have problems with such activities as remembering instructions or difficulty organizing one’s time and dealing with deadlines. Which, oddly enough, affects my work as a cameraman/photographer. I was aware of my dyspraxia as a child. I pretty much spent my life covering that aspect of my life by being loud and never shying away from a situation. Women love me because they pick up on my struggle. There is nothing sexier than one who has difficulty doing even the simplest things in life. A former girlfriend of mine described me as “the king lion on the Savannah: incredibly attractive, with a dangerous vibe. He was the electricity, the brightest, most powerful, most talented, most energetic force behind the camera.”

Once an outsider, always an outsider. I realize I would never be invited to join the club, so why even pretend that I’m even interested in joining that gang. My little unit, The Kinoks, sees the world as we make it, not how others define the landscape. I’m very suspicious of those who use aesthetics to make their work more pleasurable. “A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world.” The purpose of the image-maker is to engage oneself with the outside forces. 

I can never follow a simple cooking recipe, but I know how to use the ingredients and bring out a new vision or presence for the world. - Tosh Berman.