10 – 30 October 2018
P74 Gallery, Trg Prekomorskih brigad 1, Ljubljana
Vuk Ćosić is that artist, who in the heroic 1990s stated that the “Internet is a space where you can shop, steal and even deal.” He’s the artist who has actively searched for the paths to a fairer use of the public space. His assertion is logical, since in the pioneering years of its existence the Internet was understood as a public space, as a field of direct democracy imbued with the idea of social responsibility.
In his new project READ MORE, Vuk Ćosić rejects the separation of reality into the real and the virtual and calls for an irreversibly joined analog-digital hybrid, which binds us to new interpretations of societal relations. The project READ MORE is made of two main components: a critique of the technology of monuments and an offering of a technological solution. Ćosić criticizes the so-called culture of memory and emphasizes that the way our society denotes the historical ambient (and accents the meaning of historical people) through monuments is unacceptable. Typically, the information written on commemorative plaques authoritatively interprets an event or biography. In the digital era that no longer suffices. To accept the suggestion about the relevance of a certain person or a certain event, Vuk Ćosić is missing a “read more” button. The project READ MORE corrects the information malnutrition of monuments and markers by placing on their spot a router. Though the router is not connected to the Internet, the user can connect their mobile device (telephone, tablet or laptop) to it. The router thus offers the user a simple website, which in the most complete way presents the event or the person that the monument commemorates. The content of this digital addendum to the monument is made of digitized books, visual material, documentary and feature films, that is, anything and everything that might enable a user to create a qualified opinion. The project READ MORE is double-layered: it is made from an intervention in the public space and a gallery installation with a presentation of the documentation and the initiation of a public dialogue.
Vuk Ćosić is one of the pioneers of net.art and a leading new media artist. He is the co-founder of the international platforms Nettime, Syndicate, 7-11 and Ljubljana Digital Media Lab (Ljudmila). One of the most internationally recognised contemporary artists, among the most important international venues where Vuk Ćosić has exhibited his work include: Videotage, Hong Kong; Media Artlab, Tel Aviv; ARS Electronica, Linz; the Venice Biennale; MIT Medialab; Walker Center, Minneapolis; ZKM Karlsruhe; Postmasters, New York; Kunsthalle, Vienna; LAMoCA, Los Angeles; ICA, London; Center Georges Pompidou, Paris.
