KITCH 3 in 1: surveillance, consumerism and separation in multimedia installations

Made in China (Berlin – Ljubljana, 2011), multimedia installation, consisting of three video projections and a sound intervention. As part of the “Living on a Border” project, it is aimed at exploring the physical and virtual walls of modern times – from the digital and tangible to the socially conditioned symbols of separations. It positions Facebook, visas, border and safety controls, GPS and credit cards as profit making systems which create artificial differences between individuals under the guise of virtually unlimited freedom and security. It gives answers and reactions from numerous inhabitants and visitors in Berlin to the question “Have you heard that the wall will be built again?”, revealing the omnipresent phenomena of segregation and the role of sound in the processes of separation and control.

You are the Third in the Queue, a transfer of the site-specific art intervention previously set in a public space in the center of Ljubljana in 2010 in a pedestrian arcade near one of the town libraries. It’s goal was to critically reexamine the contemporary consumerist society and, with a combination of video and sound in an urban landscape, it allowed for a shift from the real to the surreal through the usage of minimalized imagery of hypermarkets in dialogue with non-personal sound-scapes of consumerism and elements of CCTV. By intervening in public space the question of privatization is raised as well as the accentuation of communal space, provoking the communication in that very space, speech, where the sound is audible.

The Number is not Available at the Moment, a multimedia installation intertwined with subjects of surveillance and consumerism. Surveillance cameras in supermarkets, institutions, in the streets and public transport allow the neoliberal consumerist system to gather information on individuals and their purchase habits, movement, communication and social network posts. The installation is focused on violence of control and reflected through recordings and absurd kitsch sounds of neoliberalism - like cash registers or ATMs; it represents the violence in its apparently soft form which provides people with virtual safety but in many ways limits their freedom. 

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KITCH (Ljubljana, 1999, www.kitch.si) founded as a (non)art tandem dedicated to the continuous production of projects, without categorizing them; video and site specific installations, live performances and research, activist and theoretical work focused on the conceptualization of a critical art work. They experiment at the crossroads of art and philosophy, action and intervention, questioning and demystifying the role of art and, in a provocative way, bringing awareness to the negative consequences of contemporary society and culture – consumerism, violence, surveillance, borders, and privatization. While the question of borders and migration is emphasized in the international project “Living on a Border” (Bologna, Vienna, London, Ljubljana), by labeling water, blood and fuel, their own wedding and even the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana with their trademark KITCH, they explicitly conceptualize the phenomena of consumerism as the basic mechanism of neoliberal capitalism, positioning the art work as a consumer good.
The KITCH duo are: Lana Zdravković, artist, political activist, publicist and cultural producer, focusing on emancipatory politics, radical equality, identity, violence; and Nenad Jelesijević, critic of contemporary art, holds PhD in philosophy and theory of visual culture, focuses on critical artwork and interrelations between art and activism.

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IMPRINT

Mochvara Gallery, April 2013
www.mochvara.hr/galerija-mochvara, www.kontejner.org
ngalerija@mochvara.hr, kontejner@kontejner.org

organizers: Culture Development Association “URK” + Mochvara Club & KONTEJNER | bureau of contemporary art praxis
concept: KONTEJNER
curators of Mochvara Gallery: KONTEJNER | Ena Hodžić, Ivana Jelača & Tereza Teklić technical director: Matija Jelić

media partners: H-alter, Kulturpunkt, Radio Student

supported by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia

The exhibition is organized in cooperation with KITCH - institute for art production and research