Communication with audience is the greatest problem of contemporary art production. According to the same mode of specialisation applied to other disciplines of human practice, art closed within itself, thus becoming inapprehensible to everyone who is not icluded in its production. Without any intent to enter further theoretical disquisition of the causes and consequences of this phenomena, since this is not the aim but the strating point of this text, I shall just emphisize the fact that I encounter it on daily basis while working as a curator/manager of the gallery. Following the same insight it is evident that the young generation of artists, dissatisfied with this condition, decided to change the object of their work, while at the same time trying to preserve the mediatory role of their profession.They are no longer willing to mediate the ‘image’ of the world through any media, but to mediate it inside a live body of society. This variant of engaged art, because of its comprehensivness, cannot be reduced to the impulsivness of the artistic activism.
The multimedia project ‘Closed Reality – Embryo’ whose co-authors are Andreja Kuluncic (multimedia artist and its conceptor), Trudy Lane (online designer), Gabrijela Radek (sociologist), Matija Puzar (programmer) and Ivo Martinovic (producer), adopted this method in a surprisingly extensive way. The problem of the animation of the public was solved by provoking one of the neuralgic contemporary topics – the application of the genetic engineering to human race. The closed spheres of science and politics spent an entire decade disputing about this theme that only through mass media became one of the numerous paranoias that are shaping the contemporary way of life. The authors managed, thanks to precisely developed project stages, to introduce the theme to the potentialy vast audience, providing it with media and space where to express their opinion. The axis of the project is the homonymous online work that was set into action with the presentation in the Miroslav Kraljevic Gallery in October, 1999. By using the crucial aspects of the new art, interaction and global communication, it enabled the participants to create a virtual baby and to introduce genetic intervention. Specially created program was used to analyse such an activity, compare its results with the normal population, prepare the data for the monthly panel discussions of expert team and its online reports. The democratic counterpart to the experts was a mailing list where all interested could register, receive and comment all data. Simoultaneusly with this online activity during project’s six-months-long interactive existence the authors organised 6 public discussions throughout Croatia with the opening words by scientists whose work from any angle might touch the subject of genetic engeneering. These events reached their culmination in the cycle of 4 confrontations during the last, 2 weeks long presentation of the project, again at the Miroslav Kraljevic Gallery. The complete video, photo and printed data together with the final possibility of using the project’s online function, served as a basis for these happenings. The most important fact of this occasion is that the space dedicated to art was a meeting point for the enthusiastic debates that involved philosophers, teologists, doctors, biologists, chemists, nutricionists, green activists, art historians, sociologists, bioethicists, artists, geneticists and passers by. The event overcame the state of disciplinary specialization of the historical momentum and the art restablished itself in the new mode as a creative act with potential to unite all seemingly disparate segments of society.
In order to obtain this goal, The Embryo Team merged many art disciplines. The interactive online art was supplemented by the elements of work in progress, mail art, artistically articulated project, site specific and conceptual art, video, engaged art…..The list is not complete. The aspect they are most proud of is the fact that this whole respectable project was conceived on the web. They met through it, exchanged the ideas and solutions, searched and found basical data, made the designs and constructed its elements. But all above listed is overwhelmed by succesful premeditated participation of the otherwise passive audience as the integral, creative segment of the project. The consumer matches the creator, gallery becomes a vibrant place of event. The sterile, white container of the modernistic exhibiting concept became a social laboratory in the sense of Joseph Beuys’ humanistic vision.
text by: Branko Franceschi
– – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – – –
web-project & exhibited working space
If we knew the human DNA and could manipulate the genetic code, the future generations might be at our mercy, and that of the imperfect society that we are constituting…
The project is not a fictive game with still unexamined possibilities of genetics and it does not aim to popularise scientific discoveries. It is rather a sort of experimental observation of the development of consciousness and science. It raises a simple question: To what extent are we prepared to participate in all that we have made possible and that we yearn to make possible for ourselves?
Authors
COME AND CREATE YOUR BABY FOR THE FUTURE!
http://embryo.inet.hr
