Iza Pevec
Iza Pevec (born 1987) finished the studies of art history and comparative literature. She has been writing about art and culture for some time, she was writing for Radio Student and since 2014 she is also working for Radio Slovenia – Program Ars. As a young curator, she was part of the project Zagon of Gallery Škuc and part of the Incubator for young curators, the program of the Centre and Gallery P74. Since 2013, she is also writing for the Fotografija and Membrana magazines.
If artistic creation can be considered as an astral trip to the outer space, planning and architecture education taught me how to come back to the Earth.
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Public space directs how we live and act, how we socialize and even protest. If there is no community and solidarity there is no city, no civilization; there can only be a »city-state« as the modern version of an empire, says Murat Germen, photographer known for his critical view on the home-town of Istanbul. Muta-morphosis, probably one of his most famous series, uses digital manipulation to show a dark vision of future cities: buildings cramed together as in a strange and dangerous mutation process, almost melting as objects in Dali’s paintings. Through his artworks, text and lectures, Murat Germen criticizes excessive urbanization, motivated by capital and not by human needs. He also documented Gezi Park protests, in which the political aspect of managing the city became very apparent. His photos can be understood as a visual protest and Murat Germen thinks some of them may turn into visual evidence of the urban crime committed by the present Turkish government since 2002, when it came to power.
- Keywords: art, art and social power, gentrification, urbanism, visual protest
Iza Pevec (1987) finished the studies of art history and comparative literature. She has been writing about art and culture for some time, she was writing for Radio Student and since 2014 she is also working for Radio Slovenia – programe Ars. As a young curator she was part of the project Zagon of Gallery Škuc and in programme of the Centre and Gallery P74 Incubator for young curators. Since 2013 she is also writing for the Fotografija magazine.
Murat Germen is an artist, academic and archivist using photography as an expression and research tool. Born 1965, he currently lives and works in Istanbul and London. Has an MArch degree from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where he went as a Fulbright scholar and received AIA Henry Adams Gold Medal for academic excellence. Works as a professor of art, photography and new media at Sabanci University in Istanbul. Having many papers, photo series published on architecture, photography, art and new media in various publications; he has lectured at tens of conferences internationally. His oeuvre focuses on impacts of over-urbanization and gentrification, dis-possession, new forms, tools and methods of imperialism, civic rights, participatory citizenship, sustainability of local cultures, human devastation of nature, climate change, global warming, water rights.
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In Myanmar, which was a completely closed country, they projected photographs of New York or Singapore or Japan onto backdrops and then people would pose like your regular 1990s young kid with a skateboard and a Sony Walkman which were both inaccessible in Myanmar.
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The work of an Austrian artist Lukas Birk can be connected to some dilemmas of documentary photography. If the critique of the classical documentary photography stresses the responsibility towards the photographed subject and the problem of the exoticization for the western view, Birk’s work is often developed, displayed and distributed in the place where his projects are created. Therefore, the first audience of his projects are locals and are, in that way, maybe more closely connected to the project itself. He co-founded the Austro Sino Arts Program in China and founded a residency program SewonArtSpace in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The project Afghan Box Camera, which he developed with the ethnographer Sean Folley, focuses on the photographic praxis in Afghanistan, mainly on the type of a simple instant camera, which was traditionally used there but its use is now in decline. They investigated the origins, techniques and the many personal stories of the photographers using or having used this type of camera and also made instructional videos on how to build or use one. Attention to the overlooked photographic practices, history and contexts marks also his current project The Myanmar Photo Archive, a growing collection of Myanmar photographs that were created during and after the colonial period – the work of local photographers from that period has namely remained unknown until today.
- Keywords: local history, Myanmar photography, photographic backdrop, western view
Iza Pevec (born 1987) finished the studies of art history and comparative literature. She has been writing about art and culture for some time, she was writing for Radio Student and since 2014 she is also working for Radio Slovenia – Program Ars. As a young curator, she was part of the project Zagon of Gallery Škuc and part of the Incubator for young curators, the program of the Centre and Gallery P74. Since 2013, she is also writing for the Fotografija and Membrana magazines.
Lukas Birk is an artist, a storyteller and a conservator. His multi-disciplinary projects have been turned into films, chronicles and books. A large part of Lukas’ work deals with archival material he collects while traveling or while delving into his own background. His research of consists of careful investigations and explorations of imagery, very often in areas that have been affected by conflict and have not yet had the chance to present existing material in an artistic form. His narratives tackle recorded history by creating alternate storylines and fictional elements, alongside commonly accepted facts. His created “archival artworks” have little to do with institutional processes but rather revolve around personal stories, the desire to preserve their place in history, and Lukas’ own emotional attachment to them.
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If you, for instance, want to show your audience how to produce explosives and you do it in a way, that the whole thing looks like a cooking show, that is absolutely ridiculous.
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Photographer Simon Menner is less and less interested in taking new photographs, the focus of his praxis has for some time now mostly been reflecting photography – he is interested in how we understand images (and why), its different roles and how photography fulfils them. With a series titled Camouflage, he brought into question our faith in the credibility and truthfulness of the photographs. The series shows snipers, hidden in nature. Snipers are not actually being shown, as it is impossible to see them in the vast majority of cases. However, this did not prevent the internet audience from searching for the snipers in an almost “Where is Waldo” manner and spotting them. He addressed a different aspect of the photography with the Surveillance Complex section of his work. The photographs from the Stasi archive are burdened with their potential as the evidence material. Recently, Simon Menner has been obsessively collecting ISIS propaganda. He then analyses it and breaks it down into such details as gestures, beards or embraces. Through this procedure he exposes the often absurd ways of building a propaganda narration. Menner’s projects are diverse, but they revolve mainly around the power(lessness) of photography. We, therefore, began the discussion with the question concerning the role of the artist in today’s world.
- Keywords: camouflage, evidence, surveillance, truthfulness, understanding images
Iza Pevec (born 1987) finished the studies of art history and comparative literature. She has been writing about art and culture for some time, she was writing for Radio Student and since 2014 she is also working for Radio Slovenia – Program Ars. As a young curator, she was part of the project Zagon of Gallery Škuc and part of the Incubator for young curators, the program of the Centre and Gallery P74. Since 2013, she is also writing for the Fotografija and Membrana magazines.
Simon Menner (1978) was born in southern Germany. He has been living and working in Berlin since 2000 and received his degree from the Berlin University of the Arts (Universität der Künste) in 2007. As an artist he is fascinated in how images and perception are utilized as a tool to influence people. In our more and more image driven world it is key to understand and emphasize these mechanisms and by doing so enabling a public or personal response.
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We are basically told how to feel about things, but when that happens in real life there is no script, there is no music, and sometimes really horrific things can unfold in a very, very ordinary way. In a way what is really horrifying about it, is that it is just normal life, except that really bad shit happens.
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From the beginnings of the photography, portrait photography has had a special aura – reading one’s own facial expressions and those of others is after all a very human trait. In his project Immersion, British artist Robbie Cooper presents a specific type of portraits – portraits of people as media consumers. We are all aware of the frightening statistics of the average number of hours spent behind the screen, yet Cooper’s intention was not to moralise. A diverse spectrum of people’s expressions captured during watching various media content tells only one part of our human story. In the Immersion, the screen becomes some kind of mirror, recording intense expressions of the portrayed persons, captured with an in-built camera. Because of the accompanying sound, we can guess what the people are watching – the content includes everything, from video games, pornography to snuff movies. Stills from the movies have less documentary value. With the help of the high quality of the photos, the frozen grimaces become peculiarly similar to the classical portraits from the history of art. Almost eccentric grimaces confuse us and at the same time remind us how realistic virtual reality feels. Cooper had already explored our relationship towards virtual reality in his project Alter Ego, in which he sets the gamers of virtual games next to their avatars. He was interested in the human element of virtual worlds by questioning what imaginary personas can tell us about their creators. Throughout our conversation, questions of human consciousness arose.
- Keywords: expressive face, grimace, human character and facial expression, media content, Robbie Cooper, role-playing
Iza Pevec (born 1987) finished the studies of art history and comparative literature. She has been writing about art and culture for some time, she was writing for Radio Student and since 2014 she is also working for Radio Slovenia – Program Ars. As a young curator, she was part of the project Zagon of Gallery Škuc and part of the Incubator for young curators, the program of the Centre and Gallery P74. Since 2013, she is also writing for the Fotografija and Membrana magazines.
Robbie Cooper (born 1969) is a British artist working in various media, including photography, video and video game modifications. He was educated in Kenya and the UK, before studying media production at Bournemouth College of Art. In 2002 Cooper embarked on Alter Ego, a long-term project that explored virtual online worlds and the identities people create within them. His Alter Ego photographs have been exhibited internationally and were published as a book in 2007. In 2008 Cooper began the Immersion project, in which he records the expressions of people watching TV, playing video games and using the internet.
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