The DIVA News page refers to public presentations, exhibitions, screenings, publications in Slovenia and on the international scene, connected to participations of DIVA Station Video Archive and the video artists who had contributed their video artworks to the archive. We also introduce events organised by DIVA Station (SCCA-Ljubljana) in order to promote its content and usage.
During summer months we were occupied mainly with upgrading and updating the oeuvre of artists actively present on international arena for more decades. Apart from video works by Neven Korda and his series New New Films, we devoted our attention to Nataša Prosenc Stearns to complete the selection of her video works on DIVA. We are also glad to be able to publish an excellent document that Ana Čigon made based on her performance Ana at the Station staged at Project Room SCCA last autumn.
During summer the work at DIVA Station has been quite intesive. Now, we can proudly express our content on sucessfully upgrading and updating the NNF series by Neven Korda. New New Films were made between 2001 and 2007 and consist of twelve videos. They are in-between reports by Neven Korda from his renewed reading of the 1960s. They were presented at the Škratov Garden, The Autonomous Cultural Centre Metelkova mesto, Ljubljana.
Neven Korda explains:
I believe, Reincarnation, Nomad, An Autumnal Still Life, 1 Sec of My Life were made during 2000 and 2001. The image of An Autumnal Still Life compounds of found footage as for the others the image was generated especially for this purpose. They were developed and finished during monthly happenings Zbogom video (Goodbye Video) in Gromka Club in Ljubljana in 2001/2002 (http://www.korda-art.si/korda/zbogom/index.html). In the same stroke, a conceptual documentary Poletje (Summer) was being made. They were all edited digitally on timeline, in a low-resolution size 320 X 240 in formats JPG, MJPG, Cinepak and alike and were not a production standard. The videos were enlarged and copied to VHS in order to fit the conditions of projection of that time. Since the autumn 2002, they are played at film projections live from computer with a programme Isadora. Later, in 2004, they were all, except Poletje (Summer), rounded up into a whole called Angelski venček (Angelic Wreath).
Gagarin and Blind Faith were made in 2003 out of a material of a play and performance Beri me za naprej (Read Me Forward). These films were reused in different forms in editing from 2005-07. Reinkarnacija na Prepariranem monitorju (Reincarnation On Taxidermist Monitor), Angelski venček na speedu (Angelic Wreath On Speed) and Angelski venček na oceanu (Angelic Wreath On Ocean) are the results of flowing editing done in a single piece of time - either in a studio or in front of an audience. In Tukaj in zdaj (Here and Now) the re-editing is done on timeline.
In frame of our program Archiving Practices we have organised a panel discussing the meaning of contemporary archives and usage of audio-visual material (Project Room SCCA, (22. 6. 2016). We were also interested in the feedback by artist especially concerning their attitude towards the selected and structured archive, such as DIVA Station, in relation to a mass of unselective portals focused on presentation and exchange of videos.
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We have joined the traditional Museum Summer Night (18 June 2016) with a two-hour screening program entitled Feedback Loop 2 at Ljubljana Museum Square (Facade +MSUM) in Ljubljana. The video program Feedback Loop 2 curated by Ida Hiršenfelder presents the part of video archive which is extremely important for understanding video art and its social impact, but remains almost entirely unnoticed and non-representational.
Barbara Borčić participated at international symposium in Paris: The Emergence of Video Art in Europe: history, theory, sources and archives in Bibliothèque nationale de France and INHA – Institut national d’histoire de l’art , 25 & 26 May 2016. The goal of the symposium with speakers from different European countries was to present an alternative to the dominant narrative of video art history in which American art is given the most attention.
During the exhibition in Vžigalica Gallery the interviews with artists on the topic of the presented video works have been made by curator Nika Grabar. Two of them have been published on DIVA so far: Neven Korda on video Discipline and Marko Peljhan on video The Parc of Culture. A very informative reading on the conceptual and contextual background of video production.
You can find them on SOURCES >INTERVIEWS.
When we type various keywords relating to a book in DIVA archive, the poetry is by far the most successful in number of hits/video works. We have chosen a few of them and the decision was not an easy one. On occasion of the World Book Day (April 22 and 23), we kindly invite you to take a stroll through this on-line archive that is going to be presented soon also at the symposium in Paris Bibliotheque Nacionale. You may well discover what relations between fine arts and literature exist and how they can meet and co-exist.
How can we present video works in a physical space of a gallery in order to follow a curatorial concept researching the relationship between space and video and simultaneously provide the chosen videos with an adequate setting that would efficiently address their contents? The exhibition Proximity Effect offers a well elaborated proposal that follows the narrative conceived along the concept 'the image of transition displayed in video works or how the space has been disintegrating'. As a result, the exhibition takes the visitor on a tour of six different spatial installations beginning with spatial screenings (Discipline, Vertigo Bird), to be followed by installations placing the video in a relationship with the spatial object, and thereby with the human body (Path of Crazy Wisdom, The Park of Culture, Construct, Quick/Slow).
The image of transition displayed in video works or how the space has been disintegrating.
DIVA Station is continuously preparing exhibitions with specific themes involving in-depth research. In the exhibition Proximity Effect (15 March–8 May 2016), our collaborator and curator Nika Grabar questions the meaning of space in chosen video works by artists Zemira Alajbegović, Neven Korda/Borghesia, Marko Peljhan, Sašo Podgoršek & Iztok Kovač, Nataša Prosenc Stearns, Miha Vipotnik.
In cooperation with Slovenian Cinematheque SCCA-Ljubljana organised Between Film and Video,
a two-day program focused on the relationship between short films and video art. The films and video works (also from DIVA Station) by Marko A. Kovačič, Davorin Marc, Jasna Hribernik and Nataša Prosenc Stearns were screened, accompanied by a panel discussion. Among various opinions, the speakers have also concluded that in the time of hybrid post-media artistic practices and digital art a distinction between the two artistic expressions has become obsolete and new expressions such as moving images or the art of projection have emerged to evade a more precise definition of art forms.
