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 | not really, but between Zagreb & Podaca, Croatia; Čapljina, Bosnia and Herzegovina; Berlin, Germany |
Z. Blace Born Željko Blaće, 1976, Čapljina, Socialist Federative Republic of Yugoslavia, lives and works between Zagreb, Berlin, Brussels, Stuttgart, Ghent, Rijeka, Split and as well as his family residences in Čapljina and Podaca, but most often and reliably online.
Z. Blace is (in+)consistently working (in-)between fields of contemporary culture and arts, digital technology and media, community sports and activism – by cross-pollinating queer perspectives and embodied experiences with free/libre/open and commoning methodologies and practices.
Contents
Education
He studied at Fine Arts Academies in Zagreb (Croatia) and Sarajevo (Bosnia and Herzegovina), also briefly with Keiko Sei & Vasulkas (FaVU, Brno/Czech Republic) and Nan Hoover (Summer Academy Salzburg, Austria).
Work
Bio
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.
He was visiting artist/curator-in-residence at Thing.net (NYC), transmediale.de (Berlin) and UCSD.edu (San Diego) where he curated #1 exhibition of CalIT2 Gallery (2006).
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.
He spent most of the 2007-2011 in the Netherlands as researcher in programs of Akademie JANvanEYCK.nl and phdArts.eu, as well as artist in residence at PartchingZone.nl and Roodkapje.nl in Rotterdam.
He took part in worksessions of ConstantVzw.org with f0.am/Beursschouwburg.be; Contesting/Contexting SPORT 2016 with nGbK.de & KK/B. Queering sessions on: Communism with TeleKommunisten.net/transmediale.de and Sports with VanAbbemuseum.nl.
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] He instigated the sport-culture-activism initiatives qSPORT/QueerSport.info in Croatia and ccSPORT.link in Berlin/Germany. His engagements from 2014 to 2017 include: Pop-up Rainbow with ToolsForAction.net, Kickertables with TimeLab.org, Entorse.org & Recommerce/Bains.be.
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:
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rP8R7Lwze8s
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aaRTqI093kg
- https://www.gridspinoza.net/resources/entrevista-zeljko
References
- Germany 2018-2019, Fellowship (Stipendium) web based media at Akademie Schloss Solitude
http://www.akademie-solitude.de/de/stipendium/stipendiaten/zeljko-blace~pe3843/
z.blace.name
