The project is a 3D construction of the 15th century city walls. Out of the five towers, only one was preserved (from the northern part of the wall) and used as a study case. The Čeligi Tower, originally named Black Tower or Smodniški (eng. gunpowder) Tower, was a vital part of the city’s defense system at the time. The 3D model is a copy of the existing tower with some added elements, mainly made of timber, which have not been preserved but were a distinctive feature of the defense mechanisms of that time.

Jan Sterniša (SI), born in 1986 in Maribor, graduated from the technical college Academia as an engineer of media production. He is engaged in 3D and spatial design and animation. He participated in the exhibition Robot Shop in the Cultural Incubator as a 3D animator, and led a workshop Modding Half-Life 2, where the participants were taught to modify computer games. As a 3D designer he was involved in the project implementation of Jože Slaček’s cybernetic theater, the project Concerto for 3D printers (2013) and in the production of the project Corpus Indeterminata 3D by sculptor Zoran Srdić Janežič (2013).

Gregor Rojko (SI), born in 1980, is actively engaged in the field of culture and graphic design for several years. He deals with graphic design (all types of printed materials) and print preparation (magazines, books, posters, leaflets, ads, corporate visual images and identities). He performs workshops and presentations of 3D printing in collaboration with the Youth Cultural Centre Maribor, the Cultural Incubator and Jože Slaček. For the International Festival of Computer Arts MFRU 2014 he produced a web platform in collaboration with Kristijan Robič. In the field of computer arts he works in editing, photo processing, and producing and manipulating digital images.

Jože Slaček (SI), born 1965, lives and works in Maribor as a program coordinator, animator and mentor. He is an author in the field of video, animation and multimedia. His first video art project was created in 1989, when he carried out a series of screenings by Slovenian and foreign video artists at the Media Nox Gallery. In the early nineties Slaček began to focus on computer art and is known as one of the initiators of the International Festivals of Computer Arts – IFCA (MFRU) in Maribor, which debuted in 1995. He participated in the production of the mfru hyperfilm and supervised the building of the archive for the Computer Arts Festival. He participates in the implementation of VR projects as an author and organizer.

— real-time 3D environment

Production: Ultramono, 2015

Universal Objects: Garden is a surreal digital garden full of avatars performing their rituals. It is a real-time 3D work built in a video game engine, enabling the visitor to stroll through and explore the surroundings from a first-person perspective. The visitor is invited to explore hidden sounds, corners and avatars’ body modifications in this unusual garden.

Environments from the Universal Objects series are non-narrative situations, vibrational, living surroundings filled with elements that are either standing still or executing simple behavioral patterns through which the situations become like an organism. The majority of 3D objects, like suspended automata, display minimal ritualistic gestures. They create zones of pulsing play that doesn’t transcend into something else but rather exists in a state of non-narrative endlessness.

As dynamic monuments of contemporary times, where we represent ourselves through digital performative artifacts – avatars, the series takes universal elements present in generic avatars and their typical surroundings and then translates all into dynamic, monumental, yet fragmented bits of digital information that float within the infinite digital space. Building our own doubles – avatars resembles various body modifications such as masking, prosthetics, costumes, all of which eventually result in behavioral change and rituals. Avatars are symptomatic, simultaneously actual, real, present and absent through their ethereal being. With a sense of importance, like that of classical monumental sculptures, they expand in space, while at the same time they are constantly drawing us back to the origins of their own raw, generated, digital materiality.

3D objects are dynamic, transformative objects offering a possibility of infinite performative action. They can re-assemble at any given time in order to algorithmically act – propagate site traffic, advertise, seduce etc. Avatars are our own digital ghosts and fetishes.

Units of these works were made through data bending. This involves converting files to various types of formats, opening and exporting them from various software programs, manipulating their raw data, and then saving them back to original formats. This process always involves elements of surprise, i.e. the noise that is unavoidably generated during these conversions, resulting in sometimes unexpected outcomes.

Within her works Tatjana Tanja Vujinović Kušej explores the culture of play, the poetry of noise and anthropomorphization by using software applications, custom electronics and objects. Through the exploration of the culture of play she enables an alternative, phenomenological experience of the artwork through its sensorial aspects and emotional impact. In her works noise appears as an agent of serendipity enabling new discoveries. Her works are also inspired by the relationship between noise and signal as found in the information theory.

Since 1997 her audio-visual works, digital prints and installations have been exhibited at numerous galleries and museums, such as the Strasbourg Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art, the Museum KunstPalast in Düsseldorf, the Museum of Contemporary Art – Denver, KunsthausMeran, the Medienturm International Forum in Graz, the Cornerhouse Gallery in Manchester, the Istanbul Contemporary Art Museum, MMC Kibla Maribor and Kapelica Gallery in Ljubljana. Her works have been presented at festivals, such as ISEA2009, The 15th International Symposium on Electronic Art, Ars Electronica Linz, Kinetica Art Fair in London, the Spor Festival in Arhus, the Zeppelin Sound Art Festival in Barcelona, FILE – Electronic Language International Festival in Sao Paulo and FILE RIO in Rio de Janeiro, among others. She has also presented her work at events, such as the Madrid Abierto in Madrid, Euroscreen21 at various locations, Continental Breakfast in Maribor, and Nuit Blanche in Paris. She has presented her Internet-based works as part of the Ctheory Multimedia’s NetNoise, the Web Biennial Istanbul, Helium by Ballongmagasinet and NIFCA, and SinnlosWebArt.

She graduated from the Faculty of Fine Arts in Belgrade in the year 1999 at the painting department and has been a guest student at the Kunstakademie in Düsseldorf. She also holds a Ph.D in Philosophy and Theory of Visual Culture from the Faculty of Humanities Koper. TanjaVujinovic lives and works in Ljubljana.

Website: http://www.ultramono.org

— video installation, 2015

The context of this work considers migrations of people from the Balkans, especially from Bijelo Polje, Montenegro, from which 4821 citizens have moved to Braunschweig, Germany, since the beginning of 2015. Comparing the population number of Bijelo Polje, which was 46.051 in 2011 and around 57.000 in 1991, we can see that there are constant migrations from this region. Regarding the 20-year period we can conclude that the population decreased by 19 %. Last year was dramatically different from the past 20 years and migrations increased by more than 10 % for the first nine months of the year. Poverty, social standards, hunger and disappointment are the main reasons set out by the migrants. Buses full of my neighbors are leaving every weekend towards a new life adventure.

I have noticed their sorrow, disappointment, nostalgia, but also their resignation, equanimity and a strong will to leave. A reflection of this emotional, affecting moment can be seen in their eyes, and they become a strong medium of communication. Using photos and video material, this installation observes people’s feelings by observing the look in their eyes. In this way, visual communication addresses us directly, without any need for additional explanation. Deepest human feelings can be detected by observing the organ of sight, so the idea of the work was to express the importance of this primarily human “speaking” method.

Abaz Dizdarević (b. 1978, Bijelo Polje, Montenegro) has been working since 2012 as director of the public institute “Ratković’s Nights of Poetry”, vice-president of the Association of Fine Artists of Montenegro and member of the Association of Visual Artists of Bosnia and Herzegovina and the Sandžak Association of Artists. Since 2001, he has exhibited on solo exhibitions in Serbia, Croatia, Montenegro and Turkey, and participated in numerous group exhibitions, colonies and art symposiums. He obtained his BA and MA degrees from the Department of painting at the Faculty of Fine Arts, University of Montenegro. For several years, he has also worked as editor of the art program at the Center of Culture, Bijelo Polje.

— interactive sculpting and puppets exhibition with physical and virtual animation, 2015

Robot programing and construction: Otto Urpelainen
Visual concept of puppets, animations and scenography: Zoran Srdić Janežič
Animation by AR code and video: Jan Sterniša, Jože Slaček
3D print: Poti-poti

Production: Gulag Institute for Contemporary Art and Cultures Maribor
Co-production: MKC Maribor – Cultural incubator

The art project CorporisAnimati is part of a bigger story Corpus Indeterminata, which explores the use of contemporary and traditional art media in connection to new technologies. In a contemporary sculpting fashion, the author uses casts from living human and animal bodies to highlight the presence or absence of the mass body rather than the expressive modeled form. He brings in the three-dimensional matrix of a pig’s body, connected to a human head via an AR code, to the physical space of the viewer, and juxtaposes it to the physical puppet. In the virtual space, we will thus come across a number of virtual piglet doubles with human heads, which were created using 3D scanning.

The exhibition is concerned with the relation between worth and value: the human body is a value, and the animal one has a certain worth. To a human, a pig can be an animal, or food, or material for a statue; human fat was considered aesthetic in the arts, unwanted in cosmetic industry, and symbolic in showing off plenitude. New expressive means enable new relations between real, virtual bodies and robots, and at the same time, by joining the human and the animal into a hybrid body, establish a new non-anthropocentric system of values.

Zoran Srdić Janežič (b. 1974) is a sculptor and visual artist, employed as a creator of puppets at the Ljubljana Puppet Theatre. His work includes performing, sculpturing, drawing, printmaking and book design. Primarily interested in humor, which he uses to point out neuralgic points in our everyday life and global trends, he often applies theoretical concepts of contemporary philosophers in the field of visual art. He uses traditional sculpturing materials in a non-traditional way (or the other way around) and employs various means for different purposes: video, animation, 3D print, AR code, nanotechnology and other forms of new media. His work has been exhibited in over 20 solo and numerous group exhibitions in Slovenia, and his stone sculptures can be seen in four public places. With fellow artists he co-founded the Gulag Institute for Contemporary Art and Cultures.

— interactive installation, 2014

The Dandelion blowball is an interactive installation that takes the viewer on a journey through time, back to his childhood. Back to the time when we were running through meadows, blowing every blowball that we came across. The installation works intuitively, all the visitor has to do is blow the dandelion clock. The only difference is that the seeds here are automatically placed back to their original position, as this is a digital representation of the blowball, which is restored to its original shape.

Jure Fingušt (b. 1989) is an academic sculptor who obtained his degree in 2012 from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, and continues his studies at the Universität für Künstlerische und Industrielle Gestaltung Linz. In September 2015 he exhibited his interactive installation Take your time at the Ars Electronica Post – Post festival in Linz, Austria. Since 2010 his works have been presented on several group exhibitions in Slovenia and abroad. After 2009, his works have often taken the form of public installations. Fingušt also contributes to international sculpture symposiums, such as: the students’ Forma Viva of ALUO (Academy of Fine Arts and Design Ljubljana), 2009, at the Lipica stone quarry; Skultura, 2001; Sant’ Andrea, Italy, 2009 and 2011; and Forma V, 2009, Sinja Gorica – Vrhnika, Slovenia.

— installation, 2014 – ongoing

In this interactive, participatory artwork stripped down version of installation “Phrontesterion” the Brainwaves of participants are monitored whilst experiencing a Dream Machine, invoking an experience of the phenomena Flicker via neurofeedback. Emergent sonic guides and voices recede, new ideas come to the fore. The resulting Hypnagogic & Hypnopompic brainwaves are fed-back to the participant, and change the sonification. All Audio is triggered and modulated in realtime by the participant’s brainwaves, entrained using by the photic stimulation of 10Hz. In a secluded space, eyes closed, reclined in an air-pumped Dentist chair, they float back down, where time disappeared – experiencing Reverie, increased Theta waves.

The invention of the Electroencephalograph (EEG) for monitoring brainwaves, and its routine employment in medical diagnostics offers raw and quantifiable information about the brain. The combination of brainwave monitoring with the early adoption of stroboscopes in neuro-physiological research produced side effects – induced hallucinations named ‘Flicker’.

Theta brainwaves are associated with ‘Reverie’ – to The Surrealists an ideal receptive, relaxed and inspirational state of mind. William Burroughs was an early adopter of the Dream machine created by artist Brion Gysin in The Beat Hotel Paris, and their use of ‘cut-ups’ and splicing new techniques were directly inspired by this analogue technology.

Not suitable for people with photo sensitive epilepsy.

Hardware: record player, Dreamachine template, IBVA EEG monitor and electrodes, LED nanolead bulb, headphones
software: IBVA5 and Ableton

‘Those who have compared our life to a dream were right… We sleeping wake, and waking sleep.’ — Michel de Montaigne, Essays, 1580

> Photos from the exhibition in KIBLA PORTAL

Lecture
Luciana Haill: About Flicker: art and neuroscience
– Friday, October 9 (11.00)

Digital artist Luciana Haill works creatively with neurotechnologies, digital media, performance, sound and drawing. She experienced viral meningitis as a teenager which led to a fascination with the brain. She graduated from the first ever degree in Interactive Art led by Roy Ascott, in 1996 and has since gone on to create installations and performances internationally at major venues including The Royal Institution, FACT, The Sage in Gateshead, iMal Gallery in Brussels, CENART in Mexico city and The Waag Society in Amsterdam. She is considered a pioneering artist in her field.

Her recent practice has focused on an investigation of sleep and dream-like states, in particular the phenomenon of ‘Lucid Dreaming’ (consciousness-like awareness within a dream) which she has developed into a series of performances and installations that reference the notion of ‘The Visionary’ and can be described as a form of contemporary Surrealism.

Her installations take the form of sensory environments that enable participants to access new ways of experiencing and perceiving. These works often involve the realtime monitoring of the participants own brainwaves using techniques from neuroscience, hypnosis and meditation, to control and create interactive experiences using sound and video. She is also Artist in residence in the University of Sussex for Informatics in UK.

www.lucianahaill.co.uk

The brain stimulation helmet applies sequenced pulses of electric current to tissue between its electrodes. The purpose is to stir up the nervous system. According to the somewhat obscure information available in the public internet, this treatment might cure depression, augment learning abilities and help concentration. Unfortunately, regarding this particular device, thus far no clinical trials have been performed to assert or reject such claims. However, tactile and visual systems do react to it, the effect being not disagreeable.

A large body of anecdotal evidence supports the claim that, if combined with other therapeutic practices such as petting toy animals, gentle massage, or moderate socially motivated consumption of alcoholic beverages, the brain stimulator helmet puts happy thoughts in your mind and a smile on your face. This device was initially built for [Koelse][1] therapy tent in 2015 edition of H2Ö festival, Turku, Finland. (Association of Experimental Electronics Koelse)

Otto Urpelainen (FI) is a solution developer for energy systems and is currently cooperating with a cultural exchange project in Ljubljana about the art and engineering of wine-making and distillation. He has been involved with numerous exhibitions and performances, such as installations of Timekeepers and Shamanistic sessions throughout Europe, including Slovenia.

— installation, 2015

Production: KIBLA 2015

Welcome to the Anthropocene, the geological era of industrial societies. The era that is marked by disruptions in the Earth’s system on a planetary scale. Climate change, loss of biodiversity, land, air and water pollution, exploitation of natural resources and severe soil depletion are all signs of a planet in crisis. A crisis of the planet is a crisis of the system.

Global capitalism is preventing humans from acting pro-planetary, or even from standing up to the planetary crisis, which is self-induced by means of inevitable consumption. Speedy obsolescence is inscribed in every product. Non-renewable energy resources are the driving force of globalism. They are also a cause of seismic activity: the exhaustion of fossil fuels creates empty spaces inside the lithosphere, dams apply pressure upon it, and nuclear reactor accidents cause tectonic motion.

Earth, a sonoseismic instrument, enables an entrance into the planetary perspective, a sensual and haptic relation between a human and the planet. Pumping out fossil fuels from the earth’s crust causes tectonic cracks. The globe’s crust is pierced with seismographic cuts, which are becoming deeper with the increasing presence and closeness of humans. The planet emits an infrasonic sound of earthquakes, submerging the visitor inside a ubiquitous acoustic zone of no recognizable origin. The human being is trapped inside a drama of endless circulation of the capital in a planetary perspective.

Technical support: Mirjan Švagelj, Anil Podgornik, Blaž Berdnik

Saša Spačal is a media artist with a background in humanities, who is currently working at the intersection of living systems research and media art. Her work focuses primarily on the posthuman period, when human beings exist and act as one of many elements in the ecosystem and not as sovereigns, therefore abandoning the Cartesian system of classification and accepting the fact that the field of technology expanded not only from hardware to software but also to wetware resulting in hybrid phenomena inscribed in mechanical, digital and organic logic. Her works were presented at numerous exhibitions and venues such as Ars Electronica CyberArts Exhibition 2015, Austria; Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, Srbija; ThingWorld – Triennial of New Media Art 2014, China; Cynetart 2014, Germany; Soft Control: Tomorrow Festival, Serbia; Sonica Festival, Slovenia; Močvara Gallery, Croatia; Kiblix 2014, Slovenia; Kapelica Gallery, Slovenia; Gallery of Contemporary Art Celje, Slovenia; MFRU – Kiblix 2013 – Slovenia; Enter 6: Biopolis – Prague, Czech; Device_art 4.013 – Czech; Device_art 4.012. – Croatia. For the work Myconnect Saša Spačal, Mirjan Švagelj and Anil Podgornik received an Honorary Mention at Ars Electronica Prix 2015.

Web: www.agapea.si.

Ida Hiršenfelder (1977) is a Ljubljana, Slovenia based media art critic and curator. Her focus research areas include media history, archives and their disappearance, and media archaeology. She is a collaborator of Museum of Contemporary Art Metelkova, +MUSM on projects related to digital archives and works as an online editor of contemporary art archives. From 2007 to 2013 she was an archivist at Digital Video Art Archive, DIVA Station, SCCA Ljubljana. From 2010 to 2014 she was curator at Ljudmila, Ljubljana Art and Science Laboratory. She is also an advocate and user of free and open source software. Since 2011 she has been a member of the Theremidi Orchestra experimental DIY noise collective, creating DIY electronics and noise soundscapes. She collaborates with media artist Saša Spačal on a series of sonoseismic installations produced by Kibla.

Web: beepblip.org

Production: KIBLA 2015

…interactive – evolving and changing living system…

– interactive installation, 2010

MIMODEK is a dynamic and interactive installation, based on the principles of the living world. As all living systems in nature, MIMODEK reflects its own environment. It is site specific, formed by unique, location-related data sources, and by behavior of the visitors. Every installation evolves into a unique virtual “ecosystem” reflecting its location. MIMODEK highlights the delicate relation between human beings and their environment, and their connection to other living beings with whom they share this environment.

Website: http://marura.wordpress.com/mimodek-2/

… I perceive art as a great way of finding answers to various questions that interest me. Many of them, I believe, are “universal” questions which concern every human being. More than being a just method of research, art is a way of communication, which makes it possible to share these “answers” with other people. Art allows me to combine knowledge of different disciplines, as well as my intuitive and emotional approach…

Marie Polakova is an artist with special interest in collaborative projects, where different disciplines of knowledge can intersect with intuitive perception and various art approaches. She currently resides in Linz (Austria) aboard the Eleonore Ship and travels around in order to explore the realm of art and culture on ships, rivers & seas. She likes boats very much, but that does not collide with her passionate interest in complex systems of nature. She has exhibited and performed in the United Kingdom, Netherlands, Czech Republic, Finland, Austria, Spain, Croatia, France, Romania, Germany and Italy.

Jonathan Cremieux (b. 1983) – his work exists at the intersection of art, design and technology. He studied Computer Science in France and Scotland and New Media Design at the MediaLab Helsinki. His main medium is software, a digital dough that can manipulate otherwise abstract data and make it tangible in an infinite number of forms. An all encompassing curiosity drives him to explore diverse terrains, which has led to varied and unexpected projects and collaborations in France, Finland and Spain around subjects such as pop culture (White Glove Tracking Project: On Fire!, 2008), city planning  (Connexity, 2010) or virtual biology (Mimodek, ongoing since 2010). He is currently based in Berlin, Germany.

Website: http://krem.io/

– reality transforming device, ready-made, 2012

The work Take a Break deals with the matrix of everyday, routine life and its simplest hack / crack – sexual pleasure. The everyday routine is presented by an office chair. A seemingly ordinary office chair can easily be transformed into a device for inducing sexual arousal. Take a Break deals with sexual pleasure and renewed enthusiasm as the primary system for logging out from ordinary reality. The chair is equipped with hidden accessories that are emphasizing a sexual experience; from standard vibrator and SM equipment to audiovisual brain stimulators.

Martina Mezak received her MFA at the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb, Croatia in 2001. She has exhibited and performed in numerous solo and group exhibitions and festivals (Museum of Contemporary Art Korea, Seoul, Korea; ZKM / Hgb / Karlsruhe, Germany; National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation, Tokyo, Japan, Turbulence.org; Ars Electronica, Linz, Austria; ISEA, Dubai, UAE).Martina’s work is based on multidisciplinary research in the fields of art, technology and cognition. It seeks to investigate human perception in relation with phenomenology of senses and possibilities of cognition. She is particularly interested in borders between comprehensible and incomprehensible experience and how it can affect the conception of one’s reality.

www.martinamezak.hr