Sonica is conceived as a showcase of the yearly program of MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art. It is an experimental festival, which questions ways of representation, exhibition formats, crossing borders between art and theory, object and performance and this year specially the virtual and the real.
With the theme real virtuality, Sonica will start a discussion regarding the situation of production, representation and funding. To which extent has the break of virtuality into reality influenced conditions of production and representation of artworks and artists will be the topics addressed with performances, exhibition, panel discussions and artist talks. But most importantly, Sonica will question how have these transitions affected the content of art produced in the past years and which alternative models are introduced by artists and cultural workers.
In the past decade we can observe the development of virtual worlds that have exceeded the subjective experience of the virtual in relation to the real. Some theoreticians have already wanted to prove that there's no difference between the two notions in the earlier occurrence of virtual reality. If in the past, the individual user experienced the virtual more on the level of the avatar and less as a real experience, it seems today that the avatar doesn't represent only the subjective substitute in a virtual world but a substitute for "real" personalities that constitute it. It seems that an individual's personality or character is nowadays understood according to his desires and needs, in the same way she can chose between various lifestyles and ethical canons.
That is, the same way an individual can choose between ways of life, where the presence of real and virtual worlds have the same experience and similar results. MySpace, Facebook and other social networks are like cities; places where people "go" for different reasons or impulses: to meet friends, share experiences, products and information or to get to know someone of something. Almost everyone can confirm that logging in to the Facebook is like meeting friends in a bar. In this way we can understand social networks, virtual worlds and other developments of the real virtuality at its extreme or illustrative cross section where the development of subject and technology meet. However, this intersection is not only in function of the subjective formation and definition but also in a broader meaning and feeling of space and time.
This year, Sonica the Festival of Transitory Arts will conduct research and present projects which deal with the paradigm of real virtuality. Among other, we want to conduct a research about which type of subject, space and time do social networks generate as well as situations where the virtual meets the real in different ways: reality shows, mockumentaries and pseudo-projects only to name a few.
The theme wasn't handled in a "one-on-one" way but rather as a presentation and research conducted at different levels and dealt with through different perspectives. They were in turn leaning on the phenomena of multiple present and at the same time elusive realities.
Art of the last century has been in constant search for the new: it was called modern, than contemporary and finally (new) media art. (Art of the last century has constantly searched for something new: it was called modern and after that contemporary which finally led to (new) media art.)
Transitory art is art that raises questions about the border on a conceptual and contextual level. It can be seen as a deviation from capitalist hysteria. At the same time, it is a digression from terminology such as modern, contemporary or (new) media art. It emerges in the time when invention per se or novum aren't fetishes any more, not even the solution; since many answers and (short-term) novelties are hidden in context alterations, and in the transition of or from one reality to another, from one type of form into a different one.
Although we have agreed on contextuality of truth and art and sometimes even abused it, one of the key questions remains the dismissal (or the preservation) of the border, because we can achieve the [im]possible only without borders or beyond them. Still, in the nowadays "open society" the understanding of the border means the edge which defines in and out (which defines the inner and outside parts). If we have till recently claimed that we don't want to recognize borders to be able to overcome them, today everyone knows where these borders are. But still we are not able to go beyond them. Thus the key question is not how to abandon the limitations and borders but why nothing changes on the substantially-social level despite of all the knowledge we gained.
Transitory art is in tune with the present where no one is (or doesn't want, or can't be) neither in nor out, where we all know the methods, tactics and strategies that could result in positive solutions, but we don't apply them to geopolitically and technologically divided realities. Transitory means changeable, flexible, mobile, transient or even adaptive. It can formally represent an event, an impression, a hack, a mental leap or a gesture (...), which is not always linked to the material art object.
MUSEUM OF TRANSITORY ART
Some day we will have to rewrite the history and re-complete the archives. The MoTA museum exists in all worlds, both the so called real and the virtual. It can take over an existing institution or occupy the public space, while occasionally it is just a contextual frame. Although the MoTA museum is not a national or "an exclusive fortress", it can still institutionalize memory and give additional meaning to art. Collective institutions are necessary for envisioning the past, understanding the present and overcoming the future. Thus MoTA represents the re-construction of the museum that at the same time represents utopia and reality, vision and history. Avant-garde movements in their futuristic enthusiasm wanted to open the museum of modern art, move it to the public sphere and destroy its archives. The MoTA museum on the contrary adapts to the current time-space situation and in a way subordinates itself to art. If museums represent the frame in which everything can become art, the MoTA museum adapts the frame to art itself and can be everywhere where art is. As a museum it keeps the three parameters, but is de-constructing and re-constructing them: the notion of the collection and ownership is seen through production and funding of art projects and artists; space is understood as meta-space and network; while Mediateque and ArtistTalk are its archival and educational departments.
MoTA museum is a museum of transitory art, because we believe that only by insisting on the intersection between the traditional form of the museum and the new field of transitory art is where something truly new can be produced.
COLLABORATION AND REPRESENTATION
In MoTA we stand for a networked, horizontal and consensual ways of work that culminates in an active collaborative acting. Everyone is active in all decision-making, but at the same time, s/he is responsible for a certain field. By promoting collaborative methods between artists themselves and between artists, curators, theoreticians, producers and visitors, it serves best for the artistic project itself by adapting to the project's needs and content in an optimal way.
In MoTA we present artistic practices and projects, which are mostly overlooked by the existing institutions. It is because artists themselves occasionally avoid traditional institutional frameworks or their practice slips to other (artistic) fields. We are convinced that the attempt of the social and artistic commitment, shaped as research, disclosure, warning and rethinking of the social, political, technological and information reality(ies) doesn't represent the only reasonable deviation from the anxiety. Therefore, we are interested in the subjectivity as such and in direct and autonomous creative process like it can be seen in programming, or painting, i.e. we want to research the potential of the artistic practices, which are introverted on one side and formally experiential on the other.
TURNING BIG IDEAS INTO EVERYDAY REALITY
Let's get back to the question of everyday reality where transitory art searches for and finds many answers and questions. It seems that science and academy aren't really interested in the everyday reality as such; thereby also their debates about it resolve as unimportant, banal or even absurd. However, human life is mainly manifested and constituted through everyday life. In the revolution happening on a daily basis it might be art with its transitory nature that could contribute to a better understanding of new realities, which mainly differentiate in what is or is not allowed, how we have to (or can we) behave and what is going on with our physical body - are we sitting, laying, standing, walking, running, driving or dancing.
MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art
KD Codeep
Rožna dolina cesta II/36
1000 Ljubljana
ID: SI70548889
mota.museum@gmail.com - www.motamuseum.com
Artistic director: Martin Bricelj Baraga
Guest curators: Dunja Kukovec, Kevin Bartoli
Organisation: Neja Tomšič, Blaž Kosovel, Senada Čorović, Julija Vardjan
Public relations: MA Marketing
Technical coordination: Selman Čorović, Tomaž Kučer
Design: CodeSign Artworks, Art of Failure
Website and Catalogue editor: Blaž Kosovel
Website Design & Development: Nemanja Pavlović
Photo documentation: Igor Bijuklič, Petra Tihole
Video documentation: Blaž Kosovel
Guest relations: Iva Jujnović, Lea Jelenko, Karmen Medvedšček, Petra Tihole
Thanks to: Matjaž Manček, Andreja Bolčina, Dejan Dornik, Zdenka Badovinac, Adela Železnik