Compiler / DVD-Magazine for Contemporary
By Susann Wintsch
In her video works xy-ungl�st (1997), I am Milica Tomic (1998/99) and Portrait of My Mother (1999), the Belgrade artist Milica Tomic explores issues of personal and collective identity, with all their violent potential. Because of the powerful and direct way her work challenges boundaries and accepted norms, we asked if she would like to collaborate on developing the first issue of Compiler. She accepted, and during the course of January 2003 she formulated the basic concept for Compiler//01. Thereafter we visited a great many people active in the arts in Belgrade, Skopje, Pristina, Sarajevo, Zagreb und Ljubljana, to discuss and expand this concept. We selected works by interested artists and asked critics and theoreticians to prepare texts on agreed topics as a basis for statements.
Milica Tomic describes her concept as a representation of "emancipatory politics in contemporary art (in the former Yugoslavia)". It focuses on works from artists and writers who are critical of nationalist tendencies and systems, and who are exploring other ways to (co-)exist. Most of the works presented refer to the traumatic experiences of the war in Yugoslavia from 1991 to 1999. But war is a global concern, and in reality constitutes the norm rather than the exception. With this in mind, the contributions collected in Compiler//01 document a universal paradigm for expressing resistance in culture and art, and the potential of autonomous platforms.
This artistic resistance is presented as an exemplary attitude in Rasa Todosijevic’s video work Was ist Kunst, Marinela Kozelj? (What is art, Marinela Kozelj?) from 1978. The potential of the work of art is shown in an endlessly repetitive and extremely minimal act: the work refuses to respond to aggressive provocation. At the same time, the attentive viewer recognizes the fragility of the artwork and the ambiguity of the question it poses (cf DVD title 33). Because the question "What is art?" remains open and is ultimately unanswerable, the video Was ist Kunst, Marinela Kozelj? is symbolic of our concept. We have therefore chosen it as a subtitle for Compiler//01, as well as the header for our main menu, from which all the contributions can be accessed.
All the other works and statements embody specific approaches, methods and techniques. Formally they range from conceptual analyses and models to activist interventions, from utopian sketches to parodies. They deal with stumbling blocks to coexistence, nomadic ways of thought, or the renewal of humanist ideals. They concern themselves with useless action, or the necessity of admitting that uncertainties exist. But above all, they focus on boldly transcending the obstacles presented by prevailing norms and realities.
We have deliberately structured this collection in a way that explicitly reveals convergences and divergences in the form and content of the featured works. The DVD navigation has been set up to enable viewers to go on virtual tours, during the course of which their perspective of the work can change. The menu is designed as a network of numerous links, each leading to a particular work, which in turn is linked with other works dealing with aspects of the same topic. Through this structure, Compiler//01 also reveals how art functions as a self-critical system.
The first issue of Compiler, Compiler//01 "Was ist Kunst, Marinela Kozelj?", was developed as a research project of the University Applied Sciences and Arts Zurich in conjunction with Tweaklab AG, tools for media and art, Basel. The Commission for Technology and Innovation (KTI) of the Swiss federal government provided the project with substantial support.
