During my stay at GMK I plan to research focusing on labor and productivity, self-improvement for the purpose of commercialization and consumption, the fetishization of progress, acceleration, and speed. In the gallery space, I will explore the relationships and contrasts between the active and the passive, material and immaterial labor, as well as structure and chaos arising as by-products of everyday life – assuming hat the later is often conditioned by the effectiveness of the monetization of our activities.
I wonder what everyday life would look like if we took away the expectation factor and competitiveness. If we erased yesterday’s results and ended the battle for those of tomorrow? How is the impossibility of maintaining an imposed rhythm embodied and where are those spaces that support the inefficiencies? What is the result of the increasing number of actions that we are trying to automate, shorten our thinking time, and supplement better results in different ways?
In the space, through the use of text, video, sound, objects, and bodies, I will look into the relationship between professionalism versus amateurism, and the specific performativity that exercise brings with it. I wonder how the need for daily self-optimization is expressed through the body, and what does it look like when it begins to have a will of its own.
The body is put to work for us, we train it, we tweak it, it is our machine for success.
Sometimes it breaks down, sometimes it burns out. After all, it is a machine of meat and blood.”
During my stay at GMK I plan to research focusing on labor and productivity, self-improvement for the purpose of commercialization and consumption, the fetishization of progress, acceleration, and speed. In the gallery space, I will explore the relationships and contrasts between the active and the passive, material and immaterial labor, as well as structure and chaos arising as by-products of everyday life – assuming hat the later is often conditioned by the effectiveness of the monetization of our activities.
I wonder what everyday life would look like if we took away the expectation factor and competitiveness. If we erased yesterday’s results and ended the battle for those of tomorrow? How is the impossibility of maintaining an imposed rhythm embodied and where are those spaces that support the inefficiencies? What is the result of the increasing number of actions that we are trying to automate, shorten our thinking time, and supplement better results in different ways?
In the space, through the use of text, video, sound, objects, and bodies, I will look into the relationship between professionalism versus amateurism, and the specific performativity that exercise brings with it. I wonder how the need for daily self-optimization is expressed through the body, and what does it look like when it begins to have a will of its own.
The body is put to work for us, we train it, we tweak it, it is our machine for success.
Sometimes it breaks down, sometimes it burns out. After all, it is a machine of meat and blood.”
Laura Baric graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb at the Department of Animated Film and New Media in 2016. After completing her studies, in addition to art projects, she began working as a graphic designer. She was a first-generation student at WHW Academy. So far, she has participated in a number of group exhibitions in Croatia as well as abroad and has had one solo exhibition titled “P is Unsafe R”. She is interested in the body and physicality, and their representations, boundaries, and materiality. In her multimedia installations built from various photographs, found objects, texts and videos, she explores spaces of discomfort and absurdity, often using elements of commercial aesthetics. By exploring the potentials of spontaneity, the aesthetics of errors and the boundaries of objects she seeks to redefine the ubiquitous.
