Fritz, Darko

Videoart from Croatia
curated by Darko Fritz
biography http://and.nmartproject.net/?p=588

Curatorial statement

How Present reflects the Past? Program of video works by Croatian artists have in common the use of documentary and archival materials as primary building blocks of the new creation. Vladislav Knežević takes archive photos from an illustrated entertainment magazine of 1929 as the basis for his experimental-animated film ARCHERO 29, thus creating an associative, yet disturbing “film journal”. The global notion of world in crisis seems to be transgressed form 20th to 21st Century. Edita Pecotić’s short video Time to Go Home (Final Hour), shows a journey by an empty bus along the route of deserted bus stops, kind of visual database of the part of her personal daily travel routine in London, where artist partially live. Video registration of daily routine assembled in database-like structure brings such bizarre archives of the opening and closing of bus door into new entity – a metaphorically reflective and poetic video space. Examining subjective opinions and myths about the private life of inventor Nikola Tesla (1856 – 1943) in her work Mechanical Figures_Inspired by Tesla, Helena Bulaja reconstructs the ideas and the significance of his public activities. A series of short films was created using the combination of fiction films, documentary interviews and video animations that applied new interactive film technologies through mobile phones and the Internet, as well as the traditional presentation of linear narration. Terry Gilliam, Andy Serkis, Laurie Anderson, Marina Abramović, Christopher Priest and Douglas Rushkoff talk about Tesla in the film capturing the present, past and the future of technological and social development initiated by some of Tesla’s inventions, such as alternating current and the radio.
Artists:

1.
name: Knežević
first name: Vladislav
biography http://and.nmartproject.net/?p=4076

Title of work/year/duration/credits/short synopsis (max 300 words in English)

ARCHEO 29
2010, format: 35mm, duration: 9’30”
Director, script, photography: Vladislav Knežević

Animation and compositing: Mario Kalogjera

Editing: Vladislav Knežević, Mario Kalogjera

Music: Viktorija Čop
Producer: Vanja Andrijević
production: Bonobostudio
distribution: Bonobostudio
If the new world ever existed, it is still hidden way behind the horizon. An analogue clock is ticking away the last seconds before world crisis, while a noble patina covers fragments for archaeologists of memory. A silent relief in between two wars; a time of diffident bodies, of melancholy leisure, of secret divisions of the world. It is 1929. Peace before an enormous explosion.

Awards: Oktavijan Award for the best experimental film (Days of Croatian Film 2010)

2.
name: Pecotić
first name: Edita
biography http://and.nmartproject.net/?p=4078

Title of work/year/duration/credits/short synopsis (max 300 words in English)

Time to Go Home (Final Hour)
2006, video PAL, 4:3, mini DV, duration: 1’12”

This one minute video shows a journey by an empty bus along the route of deserted bus stops. As the doors open at regular intervals, the sight of another bus stop is revealed, offering the viewer a glance of changed scene. By the symbolic use of bus stops as waiting places and metaphores of points of arrival and departure, this video deals with notion of blurred boundaries between begginings and endings.

3.
name: Bulaja
first name: Helena
biography http://and.nmartproject.net/?p=4080

Title of work/year/duration/credits/short synopsis (max 300 words in English)

Mechanical Figures_Inspired by Tesla
2005 – 2055? work in progres – interactive experimental documentary, 11 min.

With an international team of authors, since 2006 Helena Bulaja is developing her new project, experimental interactive documentary Mechanical Figures, inspired by Croatia-born scientist and inventor Nikola Tesla. The film will be released in different media: as a linear theatric and TV documentary, a series of short films, as well as an interactive film for the Web and mobile devices such as iPhone and iPad. In the film, stories and thoughts about Tesla and creativity are told by some of the most intriguing and inspiring artists, thinkers, writers and scientists, like the film director Terry Gilliam, musician and artist Laurie Anderson, performance artist Marina Abramovic, writer Christopher Priest, new media theorist Douglas Rushkoff, actor Andy Serkis, scientist and president of Kyoto University Hiroshi Matsumoto and others. The project is also questioning film as an art form in the time of technological development and the new media, and it leads the viewer through the process of creation, following the Tesla’s legacy around the world from Zagreb, through London, Paris, Budapest, New York, to Tokyo and New Zealand, capturing the present, past and the future of technological and social development initiated by some of Tesla’s inventions, such as alternating current and the radio.