Vitar Drinković in Gallery SC exhibits five different pieces created through his interdisciplinary research in the past few years. Preoccupations as the driving moment of the research are quite clear. Vitar detects main problems of society's (neoliberal) everyday with high-rise of technology, which makes the everyday easier and faster as well as it turns individual into an alienated individual. By dissecting these 'problems' and using the methods and tools from psychology, sociology, criminal science and other sciences and applied disciplines, the artist turns them into pieces, a kind of art devices. Inside the white gallery these white elements purposely evoke clinical and therapeutic moment, and they do not pretend to be something they are not. Moving through the gallery, the visitor is almost compelled to react to the pieces, sometimes because of irritation and sometimes out of curiosity. Since this is a gallery and not an infirmary room nor a diagnose with a concrete medication, the way one perceives the piece is what could affect every patient, that is the visitor of the exhibition.
The piece Projection of reflexion needs the interaction of two visitor who stand in certain position so that face of the one can project onto the face of the other. The idea of the reflection is clear and it might seem banal, but how often are we aware and aware of the projection of others onto us? In our hard times, times of frustration and problems, and for some that is a continual state, it seems impssible to see another person. Our problem is the biggest, the only one existing. Using this inversion and its simplicity the visitors will remind themselves they are not the only ones, there are others with similar and often much bigger problems.
It also takes two to activate the piece Accept – cancel. By clicking the computer mouse the ball is set to move in continuous and mechanical way, and on its route it comes to another actor and activates the sound and animation accept and cancel, and to continue the „game“ it has to be pressed, that is accepted as giveness. Declining to accept, the game is over. The everyday of virtual world in which we really do not have a choice, because our day consists of endless 'accepting' and 'declining' to meet certain goals. Interaction with a device or a person can awake automatism which can even be used as therapy.
Therapeutic effect, at least at first sight, is recognized in the Survival mode, the piece first time seen/tried within this exhibition. By approaching the work, visitor will activate continuous question asking. In the shape that recalls boxing bag, it also recalls a possible reaction to the irritating question asking: the visitor can punch the brain. But, the first relief will quickly turn into even bigger frustration since the questions continue to be asked. The only way to stop questions is to move away from the work. The piece does not offer any solution, the solution is to back down. Are we satisfied with this? Do we have to fight first to see how it is to no purpose? Do we agree with the idea that the revolution in neoliberal world where one is completely turned to oneself is practically impossible?[1]
The reflection of society today in which virtual comes before real is present in layers in Selfie hug machine. This machine offers an artificial hug accompanied with selfie you can make the very moment. The absurd in which an individual is left on its own is accentuated with ironical distance and emphasis: there's no one to hug him, there's no one to take photo of him. Of course, phone and technology features are not bad in itself, and to photograph oneself is not dangerous. But, when you have no „real“ people but only virtual followers who like your selfies, when communication with living people is suppressed by virtual world, it is time to critically look at our own choices. Otherwise, reality in which this machine is a piece of furniture in corporations put there to give us hugs is not that far at all.
Maybe the best example that recaps all the ideas of earlier mentioned pieces is Autodetector. The detector of lies follows the reactions of organism to the answers we ask ourselves, the color gradation intensity marks changes. By using the existing accomplishments, the artist puts them consciously in the gallery context, without needed isolated conditions that would make possible any objective results. By using the artistic devices, Vitar offers a possibility to us to research and recognize oneself and our surroundings, to question the relations to our body and its reactions to stimuli, frustrations that can bring out our (virtual) everyday. What questions you will ask and what you will do with the possible answers is completely up to you.
With mixture of critique, irony and cynicism, without clear diagnoses and solutions, in these pieces we can notice continual managing with low tech and DIY principles. Although that kind of approach is not artist's choice but real picture of artistic (financial) everyday, exactly that kind of esthetics emphasizes many dichotomies which this exhibition deals with in its whole, and by distancing itself from momentarily real possibilities in virtual world it also emphasizes that reality is, whether we want it or not, always different.
Marta Kiš
[1] Our World [Internet] / aut. Han Byung-Chul // Why Revolution is No Longer Possible. – Jan 30th 2017 https://ourworld.unu.edu/en/why-revolution-is-no-longer-possible.
