Slovenia

Cities

Ljubljana, Maribor.

Predecessors

• The journal La testa di ferro was created by the core group of the Rijeka futurist sheave (Fascio Futurista Fiumanense) that, during the D’Annunzio administrating of Rijeka and the Quarnaro Republic (Fiume and Republica di Carnarro, 1919–1921), consisted of Mino Somenzi, Guido Keller and the journal editor, the poet, writer, diplomat and publicist Mario Carli.
• 1920, first wave of Slovenian avant-garde artists (The poet Anton Podbevšek develops his program along anarchist proletcult lines for the journal Rdeči pilot).
• 1921-28 Avant-garde activities in Slovenia are linked to the reviews Svetokre (1921), Rdeči pilot (Red Pilot) (1922); Ljubljanski zvon (Ljubljana Bell), Novi oder (New Stage) (1924), and Tank (1927-28), published by Ferdo Delak in Ljubljana and edited by Avgust Černigoj and Ferdo Delak - two issues were published, third banned
• 1921, Černigoj and Delak introduce Constructivist art to Ljubljana.
• 1924, Ljubljana, constructivist art experiments of Avgust Černigoj.
• 1928, Berlin, first exhibition outside Yugoslavia of the Slovenian Constructivist avant-garde.

Manifestos

• The Modern Stage by Ferdo Delak [1]

Literature

• Irina Subotić, "Concerning Art and Politics in Yugoslavia during the 1930s", Art Journal Vol. 52, No. 1, Political Journals and Art, 1910-40 (Spring, 1993), pp. 69-71. [2]
• Irina Subotić, "Avant-Garde Tendencies in Yugoslavia", Art Journal Vol. 49, No. 1, From Leningrad to Ljubljana: The Suppressed Avant-Gardes of East-Central and Eastern Europe during the Early Twentieth Century (Spring, 1990), pp. 21-27. [3]

Artist groups

Arts and engineering groups and collectives in CEE#Slovenia

Computer and computer-aided art

Sergej Pavlin

Electroacoustic music

Events

• Elektroakustika, lecture and presentation cycle, Maribor, 2008. [4] [5]

Experimental film

Karpo Acimovic-Godina

Festivals and exhibitions

• Amateur Film Festival of Slovenia
• This Is All Film! Experimental Film in Yugoslavia 1951-1991, 2010-2011, Museum of Modern Art Ljubljana
• As soon as I open my eyes I see a film – Experiment in the Art of Yugoslavia in the 60’s and 70’s, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, 24.4.2008 - 22.6.2008. review

Literature

• Ana Janevski (ed.): As Soon as I Open My Eyes I See a Film. Experiment in the Art of Yugoslavia in the 1960s and 1970s, Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw, 2010. With essays by Ana Janevski (on experimental art and film in Yugoslavia), Stevan Vuković (on political upheaval in 1968 in Belgrade), and Łukasz Ronduda (on contacts between Yugoslav and Polish artists in the 1970s). [6] Interview with Ana Janevski, June 2011
• Kino-Integral: Prispevki k zgodovini slovenskega eksperimentalnega filma. [7]
• Andrew J Horton, "Avant-garde Film and Video in Slovenia" Central European Review (September 1999) [8] (English)

Video art

Artists

1970s

• in Ljubljana: Nuša and Srečo Dragan, Miha Vipotnik [9]

1980s

• Ljubljana subculture and alternative scene: FV 112/15 group (ZANK [10], Borghesia) [11], FV Disco programme, ŠKUC Gallery.
• Marijan Osole-Max
• since ca 1987 a new generation of video-makers began to emerge. They considered video technology to be an integral segment of art practices, leading to the realisation of contemporary art works. The former antagonistic relationship to the medium and its institutions (television) and other ideological apparatuses of the state was gradually vanishing.

1990s

• Ema Kugler [12] [13]

Works

• Nuša and Srečo Dragan, The White Milk of White Breasts (Belo mleko belih prsi, 1969). A static black-and-white shot with changing inscriptions, was the first video in Slovenia and Yugoslavia. At that time, the authors were working within the OHO conceptual art movement and led the Information Centre for Film in Ljubljana. In video's `pioneering' period in the early '70s, they considered and used video - which enabled the immediate screening of images and direct communication with the audience - as an element of their artistic meta-actions, or as a means of documenting. They worked with the Akai and Ikegami equipment, borrowed from the Avtotehna company (Open Reel 2"), or at international video events, such as CAYC: International Open Encounter on Video in Ferarra, Paris, and Barcelona.
• Majna Sevnik Firšt, Echoes (Odmevi, 1969). The first experimental dance project for television was important primarily from the viewpoint of fine art interventions in the media, which continued in 1970 with the Five Impressions (Pet impresij) project.
• Nuša and Srečo Dragan, Seven Nights and One Day to the Alpha-Theta Rhythm of the Oral Tradition (1974). Seven-day project of collective communication at the 3rd April Meetings in Belgrade. It started with an instruction: `This is a gesture which you must repeat and transmit our gesture to another who will repeat... .' Video was used to provoke the viewer's imagination and to neutralise the static and hermetic character of the conceptual statement. Part of the project was a round table attended by Bogdanka Poznanović (who would later become professor of video at the Academy of Fine Arts in Novi Sad), Braco Dimitrijević, Joseph Beuys and others.
• Miha Vipotnik had the opportunity of working at the studios of TV Slovenia public television since 1976, where he designed the opening credits for different commercial and advertising programmes and editorials. He investigated the structure and aesthetic effects of the electronic image; he `discovered' the feedback effect and started to create video graphic works.
• The first synthesis of video and theatre - the Charades, or Daria (Šarada ali Darja, 1976) by the Glej Theatre - included a video by Nuša and Srečo Dragan in two ways: as previously shot material presenting an actress in an open-air setting, and as real-time footage of the stage events, shot and screened during the performance.
• Miha Vipotnik, Videogram 4 (1979). Two-year multi-media project for Slovene public television, which introduced the experimental video genre focused on the manipulation and transformation of the image and on editing. From material shot in a television studio, he made four videotapes for the Multi-vision (Multivizija, 1979) video installation; the fifth, entitled Media-sonia (Medijozonija, 1979), was broadcast as an experimental programme on television. It began with information and a warning for viewers that `all disturbances and irregularities in the picture and sound form part of the programme, and therefore they should not try to adjust the picture on their TV sets'. [14]
• Since 1979, Vipotnik directed, as an external collaborator of Slovene public television, a number of programmes on culture and music, e.g. 'Yugo-rock' (Jugorock) and 'New Music' (Nova godba), and made the first music video clips in Slovenia.
• In 1981, the FV 112/15 group (later FV), working within the framework of ŠKD Forum Student Cultural Association (and its video section), took over the organisation of the Student Disco programme on Tuesdays, naming it FV Disco. They borrowed disused portable video equipment (ADP - Automatic Data Processing) from the Faculty of Arts (department of psychology) and shot on waste computer tapes. They started to document concerts, projects and events at the FV Disco, which operated until 1985, first in the Student Village in Rožna Dolina, then in the Zgornja Šiška Youth Centre, and finally in the K4 Club. Also created art videos. The group was led by Neven Korda and Zemira Alajbegović, with the collaboration of Dario Sereval, Goran Devidé, Anita Lopojda and others. The It smelt of Spring (Dišalo je po pomladi, 1982) performance at the Spring Festival in Križanke was among the first performances to be shot on video. In December 1982 the Sunday Video Club commenced operation at the FV Disco. The programme comprised music video, art video, computer animation and film, e.g. The Great Rock'n'Roll Swindle with the Sex Pistols and Icons of Glamour - Echoes of Death (Ikone glamourja - odmevi smrti) by the Meje kontrole št. 4 group from Ljubljana (Barbara Borčić, Marina Gržinić, Dušan Mandić, and Aina Šmid).
• Emil Memon shot an ambient video in the spirit of Warhol's films and the Velvet Underground's music, 1981. By means of a special procedure, he later transferred individual video shots onto canvases and presented his creations at an exhibition in the ŠKUC Gallery.
• 1983 saw the beginning of extensive video production as part of the clubbing and multi-media activities of the Ljubljana subcultural and alternative scene, related both to mass culture and constructive theoretical practice. In the 80s it went under the name of ŠKUC-Forum video production. The central sites for productive and presentational activities were the FV Disco (e.g. the presentation of The Kitchen from New York; video clips by Laurie Anderson, Public Image Limited and the like) and the ŠKUC Gallery. Countless art, documentary and music videos were made that criticised social and cultural policy, dealt with marginal and taboo themes, and disclosed the ideological mechanisms of the state and the aesthetical effects of various art practices.
• The Video Theatre Party, *1984, operated within the MKC Youth Cultural Club in Koper. Together with Radovan Čok and Lucian Kleva it created several multi-media projects (Reconciliation (Sprava), Lipstick I and Lipstick II), which also included music video clips, e.g. Executioner (Eksekutor).

Video magazine and cassettes

• FAVIT magazine, *1973, made by FAVIT in collaboration with colleagues from Zagreb (its first editor was Vladimir Petek), Belgrade, Sarajevo and Novi Sad. It was released on micro-film and magnetic tape and viewed by means of slide projector. Beside others, Braco Dimitrijević and Joseph Beuys were among collaborators of the special international edition, realised for the Eight Yugoslav Artists exhibition in Richard Demarco Gallery in Edinburgh.
• The first video cassette by Borghesia, entitled So Young (Tako mladi, 1985), was issued by the FV Editions (led by Zemira Alajbegović, Neven Korda, Aldo Ivančić, Dario Sereval and, since 1988, Monika Skaberne). The second video cassette, In Search of Lost Time (Iskanje izgubljenega časa, 1985) was presented at the ŠKUC Gallery.
• In 1988, Brut and FV Editions issued video cassettes under the common title of NEO VIDEO: ŠKUC R.O.P.O.T., Good Morning America, and MAX.

Centres and venues

• FAVIT Centre for Film, Audio and Video Research TV and VT, 1973-80, founded by Nuša and Srečo Dragan to work on their projects.
• ŠKD Forum, video section founded in spring 1982. It engaged in the production, distribution and promotion of video art. In May it got its first VHS video equipment, a gift from the Unior factory in Zreče. Its founder and original head was Marijan Osole-Max, and his successors were Irma Mežnarič, Radmila Pavlović, Božo Zadravec, and Eva Rohrman.
• ŠKUC Gallery, headed by Dušan Mandić, Marina Gržinić and Barbara Borčić. The gallery regularly documented all its projects. The footage was edited in art-documentary videos, entitled Back to the USA, Kaleidoscope, ŠKUC Gallery Art Video Bank 83-88 (Umetniška video banka Galerije ŠKUC 83-88). It also started the Video-Box-Bar, which screened (initially on Saturdays) video tapes chosen by viewers (until 1985).
• Brut, a U-matic (low band) video-editing studio at Beethovnova Street. Established by Marijan Osole-Max in 1984.
• Video Bar, *1984, operated on Sundays in Kapelica at 4 Kersnikova Street. Visitors could choose and pay for viewing their favourite videos, just as on a jukebox. In addition, London Video Arts and Soft Video from Italy, as well as video ambiences by the Kolaps and Autopsia groups, were also presented there.
• Studio 37, *1986. It engaged in film and video production (initially U-matic, later Beta). It collaborated with Slovene film-makers and did production of its own. Its co-founder and artistic director was Jurij Korenc.

Events and programmes

• The Video Heads group visited Ljubljana on its return from the April Meetings in 1975. It fascinated everyone with a van full of video technology, and with their works and a video version of the cult film Yellow Submarine by Richard Lester, which was screened for a group of Ljubljana artists in Tomaž Brejc and Taja Vidmar's apartment.
• A screening of works by Miha Vipotnik, and a photo-documentation and screening of works by Nuša and Srečo Dragan, were organised at ŠKUC Student Cultural and Arts Centre (later ŠKUC Gallery) at Stari Trg 21, 1979. Comprehensive catalogue with texts by the artists and Tomaž Brejc was also published for the occasion.
• A presentation of video works by Richard Krieshe in Cankarjev Dom, 1982.
• Media Provocation in the 80s exhibition of Yugoslav video art organised by Nuša and Srečo Dragan in the ZDSLU (Association of Societies of Slovene Fine Artists) Gallery, 1982.
• Video CD international video biennial organised by Cankarjev Dom; 1983-1989, four biennials in total. The very first event resulted in the introduction of video into Slovene institutions, enabled links with guest artists and curators, and stimulated the gradual assertion of Slovene video internationally. It presented foreign video art and television creations, and enabled production within a video workshop at a temporary video studio. Miha Vipotnik, the director of the festival, endeavoured - unsuccessfully - for several years to establish a permanent international video centre at Cankarjev Dom. The main attractions at the video workshop were the Australian artists Robert Randall and Frank Bendinelli, who created A Foreign Affair video in collaboration with students of the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts. This was the first acquaintance with the blue key procedure, the layering of background surfaces and actions, in Slovenia. They shot small collages rather than real settings, and these collages became settings for scenes acted out by actors in an entirely blue room. They also did two video installations in the ŠKUC Gallery, screened their videos, and talked about their work and the Australian video scene. The 1989 biennial was organised by Marina Gržinić, was held in Cankarjev Dom.
• In 1983, FV Video presented a spectacular media programme to an audience of several thousand at the Novi Rock/New Rock `83 festival in Križanke. The programme brought together mass entertainment and art through the use of new technologies: columns of TV sets were placed on the stage to `enhance' the stage events, and during breaks they screened music videos, art videos and real-time interviews with members of the bands. All shots were also screened on two large video screens with an independent PA system in the entrance court of Križanke. FV Video documented and produced similar programmes for other events (e.g., a symposium entitled What is Alternative?). And Marijan Osole-Max was in charge of the simultaneous screening of the Casus belli performance by Marko Kovačič on two monitors in the window of ŠKUC Gallery for numerous spectators on the street.
• TV Gallery (TV galerija), a programme on visual art from RTV Belgrade, since 1984. Included video works by Yugoslav and foreign artists, and also enabled production. Some 60 editions of the programme, edited by Dunja Blažević, were made until 1990.
• New Slovene Visual Scene exhibition, Sarajevo, 1984. Organised by Radmila Pavlović.
• Auto-vision (Avtovizija) by Miha Vipotnik and Marijan Osole-Max was the first programme on art video made for RTV Ljubljana, 1986. Video-makers were invited to participate with one-minute videos of their choice.
• Numerous presentations of Yugoslav video art in European and American centres took place in the second half of the 80s. They were organised by Biljana Tomić, Bojana Pejić, Dunja Blažević, Miha Vipotnik and Kathy Rae Huffman, and also by Nuša and Srečo Dragan - e.g. La récente production Vidéo en Yougoslavie; Video match France-Yougoslavie in the Loža Gallery in Koper and the Yugoslav Cultural Centre in Paris.
• A presentation of ŠKUC-Forum video production at the Art - Criticism in the Mid-Eighties exhibition at the Collegium Artisticum in Sarajevo, 1986, was organised by Marina Gržinić.
• In 1987, a promotional programme was shot in the Brut Studio as a model for the future programme scheme of the independent Authorial, or Alternative Television (ATV). The programme was also meant to include the development of video. ATV was supposed to be the only television station besides Slovene public television. It was devised and led - in co-operation with the Union of Socialist Youth of Slovenia, represented by Mojmir Ocvirk - by Bogdan Lešnik, Marijan Osole-Max, Zemira Alajbegović and Irma Mežnarič.
• Video Watching Room (Videogledalnica) in Kapelica at Kersnikova 4, 1987, organised by FV Video. It was devised as an ATV club - a regular two-hour programme of mainly music videos, screened by means of a video projector.
• The Pluralism of Electronic Media for a Pluralistic Society, 1987, round table organised in connection with the initiative to found ATV at the Novi Rock festival. The participants - Bogdan Lešnik, Rastko Močnik, Melita Zajc, Lev Kreft, Andrej Škerlep, Darinka Pek, Mojmir Ocvirk, Bogdana Herman and Tadej Zupančič - spoke about the situation in the mass media and investigative journalism.
• Video Meetings '87 - the Museum of the XIVth Winter Olympic Games, in co-operation with RTV Sarajevo, the best equipped studio in Yugoslavia at that time - enabled numerous artists to realise their works.
• Presentations of Slovene video production at the Yugoslav Documenta 87 exhibition in Sarajevo, curated by Marina Gržinić, and in Recent Slovene Video Production at the Air Gallery in London, curated by Nuša and Srečo Dragan.
• A Fight for Media - ATV and Radio Student East of Freedom, round table, ŠKUC Gallery, 1988. Included a presentation of the ATV programme and NEO VIDEO editions.
• The Film Video Monitor festival, Kino Atelje in Gorizia, *1988. Annually presented film and video production in Slovenia. The third festival was dedicated to the presentation of the ATV project, Retrovizija and art video. It was curated by Nuša and Srečo Dragan.
• In 1989, The Information Centre of the Museum of Modern Art (ICMG) began to work in the museum basement. It organised lectures, round tables and symposia, and engaged in video and new media activities. It was headed by Marjeta Marinčič. It went on to present national video productions (Germany, Canada, Catalonia, Great Britain, Croatia, Russia), selections from international festivals and video collections (Ostranenie, London Video Access, Monte Video TBA, MoMA from New York), and artists such as Bill Viola and Henry Bond.
• The Deconstruction, Quotation & Subversion: Video from Yugoslavia programme, 1989, organised and curated by Kathy Rae Huffman. Presented at the Artists' Space in New York and the ICA in Boston.
• The Video in Slovenia programme, presented at the 17th Week of Domestic Film in Celje and Alpe Adria Cinema event in Trieste, 1989.
• In 1990, the invitation to tender issued by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia included video for the first time. The Ministry thus became a regular co-financier of art videos in Slovenia. In the `70s and 80s, video production had been part of the fine art programme, and it was only at the end of the `80s that it became part of the film programme. The then Cultural Committee of Slovenia distributed film subsidies through the state-owned Viba studios, including subsidies for the so-called enrichment of television programmes.

Education

• 1976, Vipotnik was the first student on the postgraduate course in video art and television, and he argued for the establishment of a video department at the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana.
• A seminar about film - and later also about video techniques - was organised by the Association of Cultural Organisations of Slovenia (ZKOS), 1981. The schedule comprised practical work, but also theoretical lectures and screenings. It was led by Peter Milovanovič Jarh.
• In February 1987 the Ljubljana Academy of Fine Arts introduced a video course (first within the design department and later as an independent subject of study). Miha Vipotnik helped draw up the course, followed by Srečo Dragan (who is still head there).

Literature

• Vera Horvat Pintarić (ed.), Televizija danas/Television Today, Zagreb, 1972. Includes texts on the first video experiments.
• Stane Bernik, 1973, in Sinteza magazine he defined video art as an experiment and as a creative experience of contemporary fine art expression. This marked the beginning of discussions about video as a new medium in texts.
• Ekran magazine published a historical overview of tendencies in video, including a selected bibliography, edited by Brane Kovič, 1977.
• Marijan Susovski, "Video u Jugoslaviji", Spot, no. 10, Zagreb 1977.
• Bogdan Lešnik wrote in Ekran magazine, 1979, about video technology and procedures, and about video as `a medium whose specific conditions place it in the sphere of art and thus deprive it of political alertness'.
• Tomaž Brejc on Miha Vipotnik and Nuša and Srečo Dragan, in Delo magazine, ca 1979. [15]
• Dušan Mandić, text in Viks, a ŠKUC-Forum bulletin, 1983. Mandić wrote about the new codes of signification, and highlighted the difference between the formalistic approach to video in the `70s and the mass dimensions and social engagement of the audio-visual video explorations of the `80s.
• Brane Kovič edited a thematic supplement on video for Ekran magazine, no. 1-2, Ljubljana, 1984. In addition to a text by Dušan Mandić, "ŠKUC-Forumova video produkcija", it was dedicated to the pioneer of video production, Nam June Paik.
• The joint issue of Ekran and Sinteza in 1986 published the hitherto largest number of texts by domestic and foreign authors about video art, its history and relationship with television and design.
• Mihailo Ristić (ed.), Video, Videosfera: video/društvo/umetnost (The Video: Videosphere: video/society/art), Studentski izdavački centar, Belgrade 1986. Anthology of theoretical texts about video, including contributions from video-makers.
• Barbara Borčić, "From Alternative Scene to Art Video: Video Production in Slovenia 1992-1994", Ljubljana, March 1994. [16]
• Barbara Borčić, "Reception of Video Production in Slovenia", [17]
• "Video from Slovenia", [18]
• Marina Grzinic, "Video Art in Slovenia and in the Territory of Ex-Yugoslavia (Toward an Electronic Art Media Theory in Eastern Europe)", Mute Jan 1997. [19]
• Igor Španjol, "An artistic evening: television presentation and production of art video", in: Videodokument: Video Art in Slovenia 1969-1998, ed. Barbara Borčić, SCCA-Ljubljana, Ljubljana, 1999.
• Zemira Alajbegović and Igor Španjol, "In the tehnological grip of a television station: an interview with Miha Vipotnik", in: Videodokument: Video Art in Slovenia 1969-1998, ed. Barbara Borčić, SCC – Ljubljana, Ljubljana, 1999.
• Videodokument. Video art in Slovenia 1969-1998, SCCA Ljubljana. Catalogue, book of essays, CD-ROM, 2001. [20]
• Barbara Borčić, "Video Art from Conceptualism to Postmodernism" published in the Impossible Histoires (Historic Avant-Gardes, Neo-Avant-Gardes, and Post-Avant-Gardes in Yugoslavia, 1918-1991) edited by Dubravka Đurić and Miško Šuvaković (MIT Press: 2003), pp 490-524. [21] [22] [23]
• Ana Fratnik, "Locality in the global medium: Video art in Slovenia". Diploma thesis, 2010. (Slovenian) [24]
• http://www.videospotting.org/eng/texts

Collections

• Artservis Collection, [25]

Resources

• Chronology of Slovene video art, [26]
• Videodokument, database of video art in Slovenia 1969-1998, [27]
• Diva archive of SCCA-Ljubljana, [28] [29]
• Internet Portfolio, by SCCA-Ljubljana, *1996 [30]

Art history and art theory

Tomaž Brejc, Barbara Borčić, Marina Gržinić

Literature

• Dubravka Djuric and Misko Suvakovic (eds.), Impossible Histories: Historic Avant-Gardes, Neo-Avant-Gardes, and Post-Avant-Gardes in Yugoslavia, 1918-1991, MIT Press, 2003. [31]
• Irina Subotić, "Avant-Garde Tendencies in Yugoslavia", Art Journal, Vol. 49, No. 1, From Leningrad to Ljubljana: The Suppressed Avant-Gardes of East-Central and Eastern Europe during the Early Twentieth Century (Spring, 1990), pp. 21-27. Published by: College Art Association. [32]

Resources

• Marko Brumen: Intermedia arts in Slovenia - Timeline; Support infrastructure and funding; artists; producers; festivals; training and research; sources and bibliography, [33]
• Network of multimedia centres of Slovenia: [34]
• http://www.culture.si/en/Category:New_media_art
• http://www.culture.si/en/New_media_art_timeline

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