A traveling exhibition about the sounds and songs of life
In June I traveled through southeastern Europe from Venice to Athens, where I’m looking at art and blogging. Part three of the travelogue is about Belgrade, Serbia.
With a population of two million, Belgrade is twice as big as Zagreb, which is thrice as big as Ljubljana, but the sizes of these three cities have a paradoxically inverse relationship to their cultural infrastructure, particularly at the intersection of art and technology. While little Ljubljana had enough events to fill my schedule for four days, Zagreb’s handful of galleries were in a summer slumber. But organizations were actually there, even if hibernating, while Belgrade had nothing. Many attributed that to the smaller country’s attempt to find a niche or a brand for itself in Europe’s crowded contemporary art world. “Artists in Ljubljana were trying to position themselves away from the context of ex- Yugoslavia,” said Maja Ciric, a Serbian curator. “I think it happened as an act of security. Institutional plans to normalize new media as a discipline were carried out to valorize the positive force of power, to show that the productivity of power is realized through policies that allow for the formation of the individual.”
Belgrade had a small but active demoscene in the 1990s, which gave rise to one of the most interesting art collectives in the former Yugoslavia, Kosmoplovci (pronounced “kos-mo-PLOV-tsee”). The name means something like astronauts or space sailors, and comes from a 1970s do-it-yourself science and technology magazine that some demoscene friends found at a flea market in the early ‘90s. The members of Kosmoplovci are fond of rummaging through the past, and their varied output—which includes internet works, videos, music, comics, and books—usually involves allusion and found media. Satelitska Stanica is based on an old 8mm film extolling a joint project with Japan to build a satellite station in a remote Yugoslavian province; the reel was salvaged at a flea market and transferred to digital devices with minimal interference. Marko Kraljevic, the Turk-fighting hero of Serbian epics, appears in previews of 2D and 3D video games that Kosmoplovci will probably never make. Self-aware makes public footage from a broken webcam, primarily the bewildered faces of the camera’s owner and repairman in the shop.
Recycling material follows from Kosmoplovci’s structure, where the four or five core members regularly bring in a dozen or more “temporary” Kosmoplovci, who specialize in specific media or channels of distribution (Aleksandar Opacic, for example, has a ragged, layered style of drawing that defines Kosmoplovci’s comics). All their videos can be freely downloaded, or have distinct online versions, while paper publications often get passed around to friends. Their distribution systems put them outside markets and conservative institutional systems; and while Igor, the collective’s de facto leader, said he does tech support for cultural institutions in Serbia, which helps the group maintain a link to the establishment, he spends just as much time on web sites for his drum-and-bass DJ friends.
Image: Nikola Tosic, Under Super Stupid LandA couple of weeks before going to Belgrade I wrote to Nikola Tosic—who specializes in posters and spare prose pieces—with a request to meet and chat, and in a gesture of Balkan hospitality he replied with an invitation to stay at his place for the duration of my visit. Tosic lives on the outskirts of Belgrade, fitting for an artist who was active with Neen but keeps his distance from the local scene. His artworks, which he tosses off when he’s not working as a designer or training for triathlons, are deliberately marginal. A thank-you note to the internet’s creator and a description of the human species intended for aliens have clumsy graphics and a plain but quirky usage of English, which gives them the poignancy of stories by a precocious child. Tosic also organizes ephemeral events, like Let’s Meet in a Nice Restaurant, a networking-as-art gathering that has happened in Milan, Istanbul, and Transylvania. His current pet project is Triathlon Team, which involves hosting and designing blogs for his favorite triathletes. The idea of designating a team for a purely solitary sport, and trying to make humble triathletes the subject of media attention, has the same dry, barely-there humor as his cartoonish pieces.
Image: Nikola Tosic, sticker for Internet PavilionCarving art up by nations is always fraught with missteps. Geographic proximity makes it tempting to draw similarities between Kosmoplovci and Tosic, though their paths haven’t crossed in years and they have never collaborated. They have stronger analogues with DIY scenes and Neen, respectively, than anything in their neighborhood. Still, local conditions—namely, the absence of an institutional peer network—has an affect on their choices; no one is telling them they shouldn’t make art about triathlons or drum-and-bass. “Belgrade’s lack of a real new media lab or institute makes it more free,” said Ciric, the curator. “Because when new media works are produced they are a result of the pure individual creativity.”
As much as we might appreciate the value of detecting predators that approach from behind--or of keeping an eye on the offspring who follow us--it is important to remember that selection is not directed toward the development or formation of anything, let alone “perfect” organs. In other words, just because some feature seems like a good idea, random mutation and selection will not necessarily fashion it.
Body parts that enable us to detect the sights, sounds, smells, tastes, temperature and tactile elements of our environment did not arise from some master plan or blueprint. Rather selection crafted body parts from available components of cells and tissues within existing forms of life, molding ancient and intermediate versions of sensory cells and organs--each elegant in its own right--like lumps of clay over aeons into the shape and form of our modern bodies. There have never been perfectly formed organs for sight or hearing--just versions that get the job done.
[More]On this day three decades ago, Sony's original blue-and-silver Walkman went on sale in Japan, launching an era of personal, portable music and generations of oblivious subway riders and pedestrians. [More]
Music by Extreme Animals.
Beginning this week, Jacob Ciocci will be touring the west and east coast with his videos and a new performance, tour dates here.
