IN/OUT OF LINEVladimir Novak (HR)

Reactive kinetic installation, 2018

This processual work explores the spatial behaviour of a line the character and appearance of which is the direct consequence of the translation of rudimentary physical reactions of living organisms into a digital file. The subtle form of the black moveable line in the space from direct line to curve is transformed as a visual consequence of communication among the components of a system that reacts when its space is defined in relation to another.

The installation is driven by a system of micro-controllers, electric motors, pulleys and cogs that with a steel hawser and weights change the position of a polyester webbing strip in the space. Its movement is determined by a hermetic and tense system responsible for the processing of information and its simultaneous physical interpretation in the space.

Focused on the proxemic factors characteristic of living organisms, the work takes into consideration the borders of territoriality, for intimate, personal, social and public space, reducing them to practically animal reactions – flight, attack, curiosity, relaxation or acquiescence.

The almost imperceptible line continually communicates non-verbally and explores what in the visual field the impulse that outlines the perceptive possibilities of inanimate tissue looks like. But translation into an algorithmic code, the installation on the basis of the combinations input, creates a verisimilitudinous simulation of the understanding of human reactions from the machine perspective. By its own modification and the incessant redefinition of its environment the work occupies the role of moderator between the animate subject and the potential states of an inanimate object.

The very juxtaposition of the reaction of man and electro-mechanical system with which the work plays encourages critical pondering of the Anthropocene, of the world in which people traditionally do not accept the inherent right of other subjects of the ecological system and raises the question how of the contemporary theory of bioethics will address the new actors of our ecological community – machines.

Coproduction: KONTEJNER
Technical associates: Nikola Kukić, Marko Videc
Special thanks to Marijan Sutlović

Vladimir Novak (HR)

Vladimir Novak (1987), has in his works to date explored the materiality and spatial characteristics of sculpture and installation, building minimalist structures of a monumental character that invoke spatiality, measure and the relations of exhibited objects, observer and surroundings. In his new works, as reactions to given places and their specificity, he explores the communications aspects of sculptures, installations and space, in the form of works the visual appearance of which is an indirect consequence of mechanical actions, processes partially or entirely determined by the input and output data of a programme code.

Vladimir Novak graduated in sculpture in 2017 from the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb. He won the Award of Goranska Sculpture Workshop Lokve at the 13th Triennial of Croatian Sculpture in 2018, the HPB Grand Prix at the 34th Young Artists’ Salon, Panopticon, 2018, and the Rector’s Prize for an independent project in 2015. He has shown his work in the Bačva Gallery in Zagreb, the Antun Augustinčić Gallery Studio in Klanjec in 2017, the French Pavilion in 2017 and the Student Centre Gallery in Zagreb. He has taken part in several collective shows in Croatia and abroad. His works are kept in the holdings of the Academy of Fine Arts in Zagreb and the Antun Augustinčić Gallery in Klanjec, in private collections, and as public sculptures in Vrsar and Bjelovar. He is a member of the artists’ associations HDLU and HZSU. He lives and works in Zagreb.

contact: vnovak2@gmail.com