Z. Blace
 Z. Blace at Telekommunist International, satellite event of Transmediale, Berlin, 26 Feb 2016. Photo: Alp Klanten. | |
| Born | Čapljina, SFR Yugoslavia (today Bosnia and Herzegovina) |
|---|---|
| Lives in | Zagreb, Croatia; Čapljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Berlin and Stuttgart, Germany |
Z. Blace (b. Željko Blaće, 1976, Čapljina, SFRY) is (in)consistently working in(between) contemporary culture, media technologies and sport - cross-pollinating queer, media and social practices.
Contents
Blace been active in Croatia's new media culture scene since 1996, originally as web designer, artist and journalist - and later also in roles of organizer, researcher and curator (with)in several media culture focused NGOs:
- LABinary (1999-2003), as co-editor of printed newsletter and organizer of events new.media.culture.week & ASU2
- radioActive (2000-2002), as web editor, journalis and co-organizer of workshops/productions
- Multimedia Institute (2000-2005), mostly as program/project coordinator in net.culture club MaMa and curator of exhibitions and events.
As journalist and reporter he contributed to cultural programs of the national radio and TV (programs: Transfer and Triptih), occasionally publishing in IT magazines, more regularly in the cultural newspaper Zarez and on radioActive, Kulturpunkt, ZamirZine and linux.hr magazines and webportals. He advocated for non-profit net projects and worked on strengthening the impact of NGO sector on Croatian netspace (both in terms of infrastructure and legislation) in LastTuesday events and other initiatives.
Blace exhibited, presented and participated as visual and media artist/activist, as speaker/presenter at several international events (including Ars Electronica Festival, Net Congestion, Next 5 Minutes 4 (on editorial board), PingInProgress, NC48 - Graz, Money Nations II..). Since 2000 he works actively as a networker internationaly and has been (co-)organizing international events in Croatia: Art Servers Unlimited 2 (Labin, Sep 2001), new.media.culture.week Critical Upgrade! (Zagreb, May 2002) and tactical media events towards Next 5 Minutes 4 (Dubrovnik, May 2003; Vis, August 2003). He initiated Croatian media-art-hr and regional nettime-see mailing lists. In 2003 Blace established a.network, a co-ordination/production platform of regional media labs/centers, groups and individuals with mission to present new media culture and production in the South-East Europe.
As of 2005 Blace worked actively on #QueerSport, organizing and instigating sport and recreation activities, discursive community events, presents and published on LGBT/Queer realities in sport. In 2006 he co-founded qSPORT, a society for sport recreation of LGBTQs. Works across art/cultural and social/political axis on collaborative projects. [1]
Interviews
- "Multimedia Institute (mi2): Zeljko Blace, Marcell Mars & Tomi Medak interviewed by Joanne Richardson", subsol, 2 Apr 2002; repr. in An@rchitexts: Voices from the Global Digital Resistance, ed. Joanne Richardson, New York: Autonomedia, 2005.
- Josephine Bosma, "Contesting/Contexting SPORT 2016: Interview with Zeljko Blace", Furtherfield, 31 Aug 2016.
Videos
Presentations, statements, interviews on activist, artistic and research work:
