A Truly Magical Moment
18th International Festival of Contemporary art Practices
A Truly Magical Moment
Božidar Zrinski
The festival title A Truly Magical Moment is taken from the namesake project by Adam Basante, one of the contributing artists, and appropriately marks the exhibition and the resulting situation, which sets up a platform for producing new projects, as well as an important stage for postproduction of previously realized projects. The exhibition proposes a narration of the works presented therein, and does not focus on any clearly-defined conceptual foundation. The art projects highlight various aspects of contemporary technology-focused society, art and politics. They explore the individual’s place in the social reality created through social networks, data processing practices, and the increasingly important picture archives. They also point out the individual’s sensory experience of space, they present their views on art history and culture, and question the reality we inhabit. Reality Is Out is a kinetic video installation by Nika Oblak and Primož Novak, which literally pulls out a banner with the word reality out of the screen, a humorous reminder of that dilemma we used to have as children, wondering if the people trapped in the television screen are, in fact, alive. Clearly, they are not, but the text which was once part of the video clip, now takes on a physical form right in front of our noses. So how should one understand the reality before us? The magic of the TV picture and its strong storytelling potential changed from a purely narrative function and descended into pure manipulation. In fact, the authors showed us that the very fabric of our reality is constantly interwoven with the virtual experience, but since the text is in front of us is a physical manifestation, taking the form of a document or an object, we can also ironically see it as something outdated, something which has fallen out of trend, something that is, quite simply, “out” - just like dating or flirting in the physical world. Adam Basanta lets us experience this unique moment, turning a video chat into a virtual dance, inspired by the romantic situations often appearing in popular cinematography. The practical value of the device he presents to us lies in the fact that it is able to conjure up a magical moment of blissful and distorted reality, as the phones’ movement blurs out the world around us in a flurry. Our focus is fixed purely on the romantic music and the other person’s gaze. Iza Pavlian delved somewhat deeper into exploration of personal relationships within the virtual world of social networks in her complex multimedia installation Rule 34, in which she studies the manipulation of the anticipation of a sexual experience. She took on the role of a lover of unusual sex fetishes, and published her videos on a number of popular porn sites. The clips are never explicit, yet are intriguing enough to have created a following of fans and stoked the expectations of many porn site users. It seems that in the multitude of documents published on Wikileaks, the surprisingly magical moment of clarity lies in the fact that the correspondence on all sorts of sensitive subjects, one can find an unlikely romantic storyline. Anna Ridler’s work presents a conversation thread exchanged between two individuals, where we can use an iPad and an augmented reality app to follow their story of romance. A database, or rather a personal video collection, is at the core of Julian Palacz’s installation entitled Algorithmic Search for Love. The author built a search engine which resembles the multitude of online search engines, the difference being that this particular tool allows users to search through the film database. Thus, the search results show up as short, several minute-length sequences of various film scenes in which the searched terms or phrases are used. The work offers a new visual and informative experience of searching for phrases, and in doing so bravely explores the future of data processing and the use of the increasingly-cluttered databases. In her multimedia installations, Ana Petrović explores the esthetic experience of the moving image and film. At the core of her interest lie the esthetics of projection, and she uses different devices and tools to create an esthetically pleasing and exhilarating experience, in which we follow changes and tricks of the light. Valerie Wolf Gang takes an innovative approach to exploring and presenting the visual history of a particular period and environment. A look through the scope mounted on a rifle reveals unique visuals and stories which Slovenian expatriates experienced during their explorations of America. Each gunshot we take at a shown image reveals a detailed insight into its content, through music or traditional objects related to individual stories. Exploration of the traces we leave behind as visitors or explorers of the internet is the fundamental concept underpinning the work of Vladimir Frelih. The programmed website records every click of the mouse initiated by the visitors, but it records only the current state of the image, so any visitor can leave behind traces, marks, sentences, slogans, or they can simply erase existing ones. Frelih leaves the editing and accessibility of the content to the viewer, letting each of us decide what is worth preserving and what should be changed or replaced. The project actualizes the information value of the world-wide web, and the meaning of the found information, which then becomes ephemeral and is left for the users to do with as they will. In his work, Boštjan Čadež deals with the microcosm of surfaces, which he changes into backgrounds for a real-time animation using a special application and computer-controlled camera. His work draws our attention to various surfaces, whose structure and significance allow us to recreate them into venues for new types of communication. Marko Batista’s work explores the concepts of analog understanding and spatial audio mapping. He created a helmet-like device which alters the normal structure of the environment using special effects and audio signal amplifiers. Adam Basanta employs a similar approach with his earplugs, reminding us that we can also use our own bodies to feel sound, transmitted through the bones of the skull and physically feeling the vibrations surrounding us. Closely following his precise user instructions for the earplugs, we become aware of the sounds and vibrations surrounding us, and those coming from our very own bodies, which we normally do not pay much attention to. Russian artist ::Vtol:: AKA Dmitry Morozov’s work explores the concepts of chaos and harmony, and the balance between the two. He created a special device which swings from organized, balanced harmony into total chaos, inviting the viewer to acknowledge the somewhat schizophrenic situation and a desire for order - yet once we reach that state, the onset of chaos is once again inevitable. With the Hotspot Poet project, the same author explores possibilities offered by informal and independent networks, which can be used to transmit information. This becomes particularly relevant at certain times and in certain places where we find ourselves either completely cut off from the internet, or at least with diminished access to it, either intentionally or otherwise. Mini transmitters can be used subversively to transmit various messages, but in order to enhance their value he decided to use them to spread the poetry of four world-famous poets. Tadej Vindiš’s project Reconfigured takes pokes at the very core of the internal world of computers. While they may seem completely irrelevant to us most of the time, the mechanisms powering the insides of the computers and allowing them to operate are what Vindiš considers to be at the core of his artistic research, which itself is based mainly on searching for the connections and communications between various systems, mutual coordination and collaboration. By amplifying the sound of the system and the connections between three computers, he explores the visual and esthetic aspects of the inner workings and sounds of the machine that underpin today’s world, and in many ways affect the way we build and maintain interpersonal and broader social and economic connections. The artist’s book of Maja Smrekar stands at the intersection of the highly technological art production, a biological and scientific experiment, and an intimate story about a relationship with another person. This exceptional document takes a unique narrative, a recounting of her years of researching the relationship between man and dog. The book is an excellent example of a piece which puts an effort spanning over many years into a visual context, which works both on the esthetic and narrative level. The exhibition A Truly Magical Moment presents the diversity of applications of contemporary technologies and their artistic impact, yet at the same time recognizes that the fascination with new technologies in art no longer takes the center stage. Since at their very core artistic projects are derived from highly specialized knowledge, in-depth research and focus on a specific aspect, they can often be difficult to fathom, which is why more and more authors are choosing to present their findings in the context of simple narratives, helping them give the viewer, visitor or user a direct learning experience and convey their artistic ambitions.
Artists
Adam Basanta, Anna Ridler, ::vtol:: (Dmitry Morozov), Julian Palacz, Vladimir Frelih, Marko Batista, Boštjan Čadež, Iza Pavlina, Tadej Vindiš, Valerie Wolf Gang, Nika Oblak & Primož Novak, Maja Smrekar, Ana Petrović, Štipendisti ( Domen Dimovski, Tina Lanišek, Miha Godec in Laren Polič Zdravič, Anja Jurše, Anja Hauptman, Kristina Keber, Ivan Stanojvić, Mitja Cvetko).
Grant recipients
At the 23th edition of the MFRU (International Computer Arts Festival), which took place in v Maribor between 11 and 18 October 2017, four grants/student awards were awarded for the first time to intermedia projects submitted since last year’s 2016 edition in four Slovenian educational institutions: Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Maribor Faculty of Education, Maribor Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and the University of Nova Gorica Arts Academy. During the festival, the award-winning projects were presented at the GT22 gallery located at Glavni trg 22, featuring the authors DOMEN DIMOVSKI from the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts and Design, MIHA GODEC from the University of Nova Gorica Arts Academy, MITJA CVETKO + IVAN STANOJEVIČ + ANJA HAUPTMAN + ANJA JURŠE + KRISTINA KEBER from the Maribor Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, and TINA LANIŠEK from the Maribor Faculty of Education.
Contact
Kulturni dom Nova Gorica, Bevkov trg 4, 5000 Nova Gorica
Project manager: Pavla Jarc Tel.: 05 33 540 11 direktor@kulturnidom-ng.si Project coordinator: Mateja Poljšak Furlan Tel.: 05 33 540 15 mestnagalerija@kulturnidom-ng.si Technical director: Tadej Hrovat Fotograf: Matej Vidmar
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