OBJECT

About the process

Media, post-media, digital, post-digital, internet, post-internet, performers and post-performers, analog and post-analog artists from Slovenia and abroad were invited to name, delegate, select the object to represent them artistically at the Pixxelpoint 2015 festival. I did not ask the artist why they chose a particular object, I did not negotiate with them on whether or not an object was appropriate or in line with the concept of this year’s festival, I simply accepted their choice and designation. The objects they named were then sought in the close vicinity or far away from the town of Nova Gorica. Some were found around the corner, practically at home, and were easy to find. Others came from far away, and we had to make great efforts to bring them to the festival. Some of the objects we found were very close to the artists’ wishes, some were prepared in collaboration with them, others had to be assembled, manufactured or borrowed, and in some cases we were never able to come close to the original order, but we came as close as possible under the circumstances. The result of this painstaking, taxing, intense but inspirational process are the objects featured in the festival and festival events. These objects now represent the contributing artists of this year’s festival as their artistic contributions bearing their name, even though most of the artists did not create their objects themselves, they have never seen them, nor will they ever see or touch them before the beginning of the festival. When they see and touch it at the festival opening and exhibition, it will already be too late. Those artists who are unable to attend the festival will never see their artistic work.

About the objects

These objects, these things, may or may not be art – I do not think about that as the para-curator of this year’s 16th edition of the media art festival, nor do I care. If they are, they’re welcome. If not, I don’t care. The only thing I learned from them while preparing for the festival, all they told me, was: Make your own art. Do not expect us to do it for you. Just as we cannot and should not judge people by the color of their skin, nationality, appearance, bank account balance and sexual orientation, so, too, should we not categorize objects according to the criterion of whether or not they are art. Who cares! Who has the right to judge? I see them as autonomous objects, I recognize all of their object rights, I unconditionally respect them, love them endlessly and unconditionally, and I do not interfere with their existence. I do not ask myself about what they mean, or what story they are trying to tell us. They just are. I can only observe them, but this does not affect them in any way. I don’t ask them, the objects, anything, either. I have no expectations from them, I don’t want anything from them. I do not judge them or interpret them. I recognize that - once they are made - they exist autonomously, independently from man, or even mankind, and that they are probably the most perfect when they do not interact with people. I cannot know for certain, but this year’s festival and exhibition probably work best when there are no visitors, no us, no people, perhaps at night, when we close down the festival venues, when nobody’s watching, when we, the people, hibernate and finally cease to care.
Things are not subordinated to people, artists, they are more than just a device of expression or a tool, once we understand them beyond their basic function, they become a “surface for semantic projection”, to quote the theoretician Martina Ruhsam, who points out that if objects, non-human entities in the traditional forms of art, were once subordinated to the artist’s expression, they can exist entirely autonomously in a non-anthropocentric conception of the world. The fact that agency is not a human privilege is also suggested by object-oriented ontology, new materialism and speculative realism, even though we regard them strictly from a critical standpoint. Or in the words of French writer and philosopher Tristan Garcia, people, compared to objects and things, are not an exception. A thing is everything, no matter how big or small, how true or wrong, how human or nonhuman it may be. As the thing is always in something other than itself, it can never be itself, argues Martina Ruhsam, quoting Garcia: “… the self is precisely what we must abandon here, so that there is something and a world. Nothing is in itself. Everything is outside itself. No-matter-what is something, is in something other than itself. A difference is maintained between that which is in the thing and that in which the thing is.”

About the festival

This year’s festival continues the collaboration with the School of Art of the University of Nova Gorica and the Gorizia-based Lucide. With 57 contributing artists, we invite you to an exhibition taking place in three venues - Nova Gorica City Gallery, Nova Gorica School of Art and the Gorizia Chamber of Commerce. You are invited to attend lectures, round-table discussions, discussions with artists, online and gallery performances, workshops and public events. Alongside each other equally, we present both established artists with impressive international references and art students bravely entering the world of art, and the most fascinating artistic initiatives looking for their place under the sun in the contemporary world.
The festival has undergone a metamorphosis over the sixteen years of its existence. Initially a digital arts festival, then an interactive arts festival, followed by new-media festival, then going back to being a media festival, to even being a festival of non-art last year. This year’s edition hints at its possible future, to become simply an arts festival, which is my humble wish. A festival of contemporary, provocative, alternative art.
After two years of para-curating the festival, I am leaving the festival with a sense of pleasure and achievement, yet hoping that future curators will take an even more radical cut into the flesh of contemporary art, and shake the boundaries of the festival and of the art it hosts and represents. This is particularly important at a time like today’s, a time of hostility towards art and its role in contemporary society. The festival has the support of the exceptional team of the Nova Gorica Cultural Center and its City Gallery. It has strong ties to the local and trans-border environment and even now has impressive international references.

Welcome! Welgone!

At this festival, we show you the objects forensically: observe them, be respectful towards them, and never trust them. You are entering the autonomous world of things, so, as you are aware, abandon all hope.

para-Curator: Igor Štromajer, intima.org

ABOUT THE PARA-CURATOR

Igor Štromajer (www.intima.org) is a para-artist, an intimate mobile communicator and a pioneer of net art. His works are included in the permanent collections of, among others, Centre Pompidou, Paris, Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid, Computer Fine Arts Gallery, New York, Moderna galerija, Ljubljana, and the Maribor Art Gallery. He explores dystopian emotions, inability to communicate, the strategies of the causeless rebellion, and the futile tactics of transcending political anxiety. He is has shown his works at festivals, biennials and exhibitions around the world. He is the happiest artist in the world and has an infinite amount of time.

PROGRAM

27. NOVEMBER
On the opening day, between 6.00pm and 9.30pm, free shuttle service will be provided between the two venues.

6.00pm Preopening of the exhibition
Trgovski dom Gallery, then School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica, Gorizia (I)

8.00pm Opening of the exhibition OBJECT and official opening ceremony of Pixxelpoint 2015 Festival
Nova Gorica City Gallery

Sara Šabjan & Monika Pocrnjić (ČIPke): Avdioobčutljiva kocka, sound performance workshop

28. NOVEMBER
5:00pm Martina Ruhsam: The It As Actant, lecture
Nova Gorica City Gallery

6:30pm Annie Abrahams in Martina Ruhsam: besides, smaller than a single pixel, networked performance

30. NOVEMBER
3.00pm Round table of students of School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica: POST-UMETNOST / POST-ART
School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica, Goriza (I)

6:00pm Marco Ceccotto: Object of sound, artist talk
Trgovski dom Gallery, Gorizia (I)

1. DECEMBER
9.00am Špela Furlan, guided tour of the exhibition for children
Nova Gorica City Gallery

6:00pm Para-curator and chief investigator Igor Štromajer, guided tour of the exhibition
Nova Gorica City Gallery

7:00pm Marko Batista: Resonance Data, AV performance
Nova Gorica City Gallery

2. DECEMBER
9:00am Jaka Železnikar, children’s workshop
Nova Gorica City Gallery

6:00pm Presentation of artists of Pixxelpoint 2015
Nova Gorica City Gallery

3. DECEMBER
9:00am Jaka Železnikar, children’s workshop
Nova Gorica City Gallery

6:00pm Alberto Novello: Object of sound, artist talk
Trgovski dom Gallery, Gorizia (I)

4. DECEMBER
5:00pm Every time you say goodbye, I die a little - A farewell to the objects of the Pixxelpoint 2015 Festival
Nova Gorica City Gallery; Trgovski dom Gallery, Gorizia (I)

The main exhibition at the Nova Gorica City Gallery will be open for visitors every day from 9.00am to 7.00pm from 27 November until 4 December, 2015.
The exhibition of the School of Arts, University of Nova Gorica (Via Diaz 5, Gorizia), will be open for visitors from 1 to 4 December, 2015 from 10.00am to 3.00pm.
The installation at the Trgovski dom Gallery (Corso Giuseppe Verdi 52, Gorizia (I)) will be open for visitors between 2.00pm and 8.00pm from 27 November to 4 December, 2015.

CONTACTS

Kulturni dom Nova Gorica, Bevkov trg 4, 5000 Nova Gorica

Project manager:
Pavla Jarc
Tel.: 05 33 540 11, e-mail: direktor@kulturnidom-ng.si

Project coordinator:
Mateja Poljšak Furlan
Tel.: 05 33 540 15, e-mail: mestnagalerija@kulturnidom-ng.si

Technical director: Tadej Hrovat
Photographer: Matej Vidmar

Catalog Pixxelpoint 2015

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