Nika Oblak & Primož Novak
And Now for Something Completely Different 12

Exhibition
6–29 October 2021

Opening
WED, 6 October 2021 at 7 PM

Aksioma | Project Space, Ljubljana

The work by the duo Nika Oblak & Primož Novak entitled Infinity (digital) focuses on the influence of contemporary means of communication on one’s life. Their artistic practice over the past twenty years has continuously addressed the position of humans in the clenches of consumerist doctrines, media cacophony and popular culture. Along the same lines, in their latest work they have created a spatial video installation consisting of screens, cables and other heralds of everyday modern life.

Employing a good measure of humour and self-irony, the artists focus once again on the human being that is – no less than in the past – caught up in the absurdities of daily routines and subjected to the conventions of tradition and the patterns of dominant culture. Infinity (digital) shows the motif of running, symbolised by an ordinary man involved in the multilayered mechanisms of today’s neoliberal reality. The image of the protagonist running in an infinite and senseless loop from screen to screen can thus be seen as a manifestation of the myth of Sisyphus who, by means of divine punishment, was condemned to repeatedly roll a boulder up the same hillside. With this gesture, the artists point out people’s self-evident attitude to technological progress, show the imperative of adapting to all kinds of changes and call attention to the loosening of basic humanistic values. Even though, in the last few decades, society and technology have advanced to the degree that there is seemingly less and less monotonous work and jobs, the abundance of everything that is available in the material and virtual world can still make one feel caught in the metaphorical aimless run. Contemporary society worships constant fulfilment, whether through work or leisure activities. Subjected to all kinds of stimuli, people today are consequently overloaded with activity. Regardless of whether it relates to one’s job or one’s vacations and travels, activity is ever-present, such as on social media networks where there is a constant absorption of information.

That is why the video’s protagonist, dressed in casual clothes, who persistently and endlessly runs through the screens, can symbolise precisely this inevitable entrapment of individuals in the shackles of prescribed lifestyles and activities, which they cannot resist – at least not without the risk of extreme social deviation or ostracisation, The monumental, white, spaceless environment of the video, into which the runner moves in an even straight line, metaphorically suggests the self-evident fact that an individual is always subordinate to the collective – that is, to society – and always has to adapt to it, for his or her own comfort. The infinity examined by the artists is highly abstract and formless. But, at the same time, it is very familiar since people are consciously or unconsciously prone to repeat patterns, which actually fulfil them and provide them with a feeling of security. The infinite run and its monotonous sound could thus be a lucid depiction of the artists’ relation to the world and their own position in it.

THE AUTHORS

Nika Oblak & Primož Novak have been working collectively since 2003. In their art practice they examine the influence of media and capital on contemporary society, dissecting its visual and linguistic structure. Oblak & Novak have exhibited worldwide, in venues like the Sharjah Biennial (AE), Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo (JP), Istanbul Biennial (TR), Biennale Cuvee, Linz (AT), Transmediale Berlin (DE), FILE Sao Paulo (BR), among others. They have received numerous grants and awards, including the CYNETART Award by the Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau in Dresden (DE), an honorary mention of art critics at Biennale WRO, Wroclaw (PL), the White Aphroid Award for artistic achievement by MMC KIBLA, Maribor (SI) and a Rihard Jakopic honorable mention, awarded by the Slovenian Association of Fine Arts Societies, the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, Moderna galerija and the Slovene Association of Art Critics (SI).

RELATED EVENTS

Nika Oblak & Primož Novak
Infinity (digital)
Exhibition
17 September–18 October 2020
DLUL Gallery, Breg 22, Ljubljana

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Nika Oblak & Primož Novak
And Now for Something Completely Different 10
Exhibition
12 June–12 July 2019
Aksioma | Project Space, Ljubljana

This article is only available on Lulu.com

PostScript^UM #38

Primož Krašovec
Smetnjak vs. Ljubljana: Singularity of Humour and Politics Beyond Elections

The essay is a commentary of the last ten years of Smetnjak’s intellectually, politically and ethically outstanding production. Intellectually as a collection of theoretic – yet not academic – references, which makes them contemporary, to the point and intriguing and not a part of the canon established for the purpose of raising epigons of one ‘school’ or another. Politically as an exercise in thought, which does not assume fixed sides or viewpoints – not because it would be vague or opportunistic, but because it is too intense to be caught in the fixed positions of identity. Ethically as an attitude towards the world and oneself, refusing to accept the existing, but not being critical to it in a way that affirms the opposite (as this would presuppose criticism from a standpoint of a fixed identity), nor being outraged or judgemental (nonconformity not based on morality). The most important methods of Smetnjak’s operation are singular humour and not taking sides.

EN | 14.8 x 21 cm | 14 pp | COLOUR | soft cover | 2021
ISBN 978-961-95437-0-2 (Printed)
ISBN 978-961-95064-9-3 (Digital)

Tina Umer
Wish

Installation
22 May 2021
Central market, Ljubljana

Part of U30+ production programme for supporting young artists

In the current stage of the so-called platform economy, targeted advertising has become the main source of income for social networking platforms. User data are collected, their preferences and interests analized and turned into information that can be sold to the companies willing to reach them. This advertising mostly takes the form of moving or still images, but they are not pictures to be looked at: they are rather made to be clicked on. They are “operational images” (Harun Farocki), meant not to represent anything, but to trigger an action. Paradoxically, really looking at them can thus turn into a critical, subversive gesture in itself. Selected in the framework of the U30+ initiative, Tina Umer’s project Gone dives deep into this pool of images, selecting them, magnifying them, manipulating them by means of embroidery and textiles, and turning them into objects of aesthetic contemplation and critical thinking again.

THE AUTHOR

Tina Umer (1991) lives and works in Gothenburg (SE). She finished BA in Visual Communication at Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana, and in 2019 MfA in Photography at Valand Academy, Gothenburg (SE). In her work she explores themes like personal symbolism, materiality, layers of the photographic medium and material culture, as well as the ways the online and offline realities meet. She uses digital and analogue photography, textile and installation. She participated in several group and solo exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad. Her dummy book Danish Mountains was shortlisted for the Nordic Dummy Award 2018. She was the Artist in Residence at Witte Rook in Breda, the Netherlands, 2020. She received grants from the Hasselblad foundation, Adlerbertrska foundation, AAA foundation and Municipality of Koper.

Price: 16,66€

This book is not only a guide to Clusterduck Collective’s latest work, “The Detective Wall”. It is also your key to the unsettling, nonsensical, but ultimately liberating parallel universe called the memesphere.

How does one make sense of a senseless world?
How can one represent the unrepresentable?
How would one map the unmappable?

Part of Clusterduck Collective’s new participative transmedia project, Meme Manifesto, the Wall is loaded with meanings, symbols, paintings and memetic fossils – joined together by a plot, but difficult to decipher. This book will guide you in the process, giving you precious hints.

Get ready to explore another dimension.
Get ready to get paranoid.
Get ready to get lost.

While opening and reading these pages, Clusterduck recommends great care and to proceed at your own risk. As Marc Tuters points out in his introduction to the Guide: “The cleverness of Clusterduck lies in the seriousness with which they approach an object that refuses to be taken seriously. It is this attitude that has permitted them to stare into the abyss on our behalf, and not to become monsters themselves.”

Let’s hope that his words are true.
Let’s hope it’s not a trap.
Let’s find out.

EN | 10.5 x 16.7 cm | 180 pp | colour | soft cover | 2021
ISBN 978-961-95064-7-9

Related event: Meme Manifesto

Valentina Tanni et al.
MemesteticA

Series of talks
Curated by Valentina Tanni
20 May–23 June 2021
Online

This series of online conversations that accompanies the launch of the Slovenian edition of Valentina Tanni’s book MemesteticA explores the world of memes and participatory culture by focusing on its relationship with modern and contemporary visual art. The goal is to discuss meme aesthetics and to investigate the role that this unregulated cultural system – characterized by an unprecedented level of participation – will have in reshaping our concept of art and its role in society.

PROGRAMME

20 May 2021 at 5 PM (CET)
Valentina Tanni: MemesteticA – The Eternal September of Art
Book presentation

26 May 2021 at 5 PM (CET)
Marc Tuters in conversation with Valentina Tanni

2 June 2021 at 5 PM (CET)
Joshua Citarella in conversation with Valentina Tanni

9 June 2021 at 5 PM (CET)
Smetnjak in conversation with Valentina Tanni

16 June 2021 at 5 PM (CET)
Clusterduck in conversation with Valentina Tanni

23 June 2021 at 5 PM (CET)
Eva and Franco Mattes in conversation with Valentina Tanni

PART OF THE CONFERENCE

Tactics & Practice #11: MemesteticA
Curated by Valentina Tanni
19 May–2 July 2021

RELATED ACTIVITY

Valentina Tanni
Memestetica – The Eternal September of Art
Book publishing

Smetnjak
Everything Must Go

Exhibition
9 June–9 July 2021

Aksioma | Project Space, Ljubljana

We are told that memes are the language of advertising – so what? Smetnjak has no problem with its jollity. You don’t have to be sad to do politics, declares Foucault, even if the thing you’re fighting is abominable. Except that the repugnant is not what we’re up against (it’s the mediocre!), and we’re not fighting it either (it’s tricks, not conflicts). Smetnjak’s memes don’t judge; they scramble the tired binary oppositions. To scramble is to complexify, to stuff with meanings, to weave a network of connections. Scrambling is the movement of schizophrenia but also of the capitalist market, which ceaselessly breaks up the continuity of any tradition. When it comes to culture, the market is the argument of our conscientious right-wingers, but isn’t it really just a smokescreen for more paranoid folklorisms? The leftist virtuousness, which refuses to compromise with the commercial, doesn’t vibe with us either. It’s a drag. We prefer to entertain, to disrupt, to sell. In this spirit, Smetnjak’s exhibition delivers its memes in every possible commercial format and puts them all on sale. Everything must go, we shout, if only for a moment!

AUTHOR

Smetnjak is an anonymous collective from Slovenia that has been mixing memes with theory and art for over a decade now. Its memes seek to redirect the reality of everyday politics, where shit and mediocracy abound, toward something kinder and funnier. With a knack for going viral, Smetnjak’s work has been featured in countless feeds and sites like critical-theory.com, versobooks.com, adsoftheworld.com and artribune.com. Everything Must Go is its first solo exhibition.

RELATED ACTIVITIES

PUBLICATION

Primož Krašovec
Smetnjak vs. Ljubljana: Singularity of Humour and Politics Beyond Elections
PostScriptUM #38

► eBROCHURE (PDF)
► PRINT ON DEMAND
► LIST ON ISSUU

CONFERENCE

Valentina Tanni et al.
Tactics & Practice #11: MemesteticA
Conference
19 May–2 July 2021
Various locations

Price: 15€

► Originally published in Italian language by NERO Editions.
► The Slovenian edition is available HERE.

In the 21st century, art has become a weird thing, weirder, even, than it was before. The Internet, new technologies and social media have stormed our visual universe with gifs, photoshopping and all kinds of appropriation practices. Trolls, YouTubers and Instagrammers are leaving an aesthetic legacy that recalls the precepts of the historical avant-gardes, cheerfully distorted in a bizarre and wild way. How do the arts that we find in museums react to such retaliation? What if the art history books of the future would list not only works of art made by those formally recognised artist-geniuses, but also all memes made by anonymous users hidden behind all those absurd pseudonyms? This book is the first to draft a comprehensive cartography of the relationship between visual arts and digital culture from the early 2000s–on, where Valentina Tanni traces back the path “from Duchamp to TikTok”, defining the contours of one of the most interesting landscapes of our present.

SI | 10.5 x 16.7 cm | 272 pp | B/W | soft cover | 2021
ISBN 978-961-95064-8-6

Related event: Tactics & Practice #11: MemesteticA