OBJECT

I want to keep you alive so there is always the possibility of murder later. I want you to understand that my malevolence is just a way to win. We want the name of our ruiner. I want you to know that being kind is overrated. I want to write my secret across your sky. I like to watch you lose control. … I want your paws and teeth to scar me so I'll know where you've been … We get excited when an animal is slaughtered and therefore we feel sentimental. So sentimental that we can´t wait to taste it´s fear while eating it for dinner. We transcendent fear. We wanted to be there when its hot black rage ripped wide open. We want to taste our own kind: Nature-Culture ends up being one word. You are my nutrient as I am yours. When I want to strangle the stars for all they promised me, I cry into you, hugging your soft fur and I want you to know my wounds are self-inflicted. I want to be somewhere beautiful when I die, with you, as you embody my intimate emotional memory. I want you to make me understand what is the difference between a child and domesticated animal? Am I a dog? I want to be your dog. I want to stop destroying you but I can't. This is our intimacy.

ARTIST

Maja Smrekar was born in 1978, in Slovenia. In 2005 she graduated from Sculpture at the Ljubljana Fine Arts and Design Academy, where she is taking a master’s course in Video and New Media. For the past eight years she has been regularly working with the Kapelica Gallery, and for the last five years she has been working with Aksioma Institute. As part of its production activities, she is interested in making projects which integrate arts and sciences in interdisciplinary artworks. In 2010, she was the artistic manager and organizer of the international intermedia art festival HAIP10 – New Nature at the Kiberpipa Multimedia Center, where she has been the artistic manager for two years. In 2012, she won the first prize of the Hellerau - European Art Center at the Cynetart festival in Dresden (Germany), and in 2013 she won an Honorary Mention in the Hybrid Arts category at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz (Austria). She also won the national Golden Bird award for her work in visual arts. Maja Smrekar lives and works between Ljubljana and Berlin.

— majasmrekar.org/work