Projects of co-workers
Boštjan Čadež: Self-Portrait
New media installation
Text: Ida Hiršenfelder

April 1–15 , 2014
Nova galerija DDT, Trg svobode 11a, Trbovlje, Slovenia

We are informing you about the collaboration of SCCA co-worker, Ida Hiršenfelder, curator and theoretician of new media art and member of physical and web archive of video art DIVA Station, which is being developed by SCCA-Ljubljana. Ida Hiršenfelder theoretically based the project by Boštjan Čadež Self-Portrait.

"A laptop is observing itself in the mirror with a webcam. It is "sat" on a chair in a white empty space, connected to a device (Arduino) for translating computer code into mechanical operation. Arduino feeds the code into two rotary engines, which are fixed to the upper left and right corners of an easel. A globular plastic rope is affixed to the engines’ bearings; ball by ball, it guides the movement of the drawing pen over the painting surface. Boštjan Čadež upgraded and customised the complex code for computer vision with which computer entities learn to detect physical space. The laptop draws its vision of itself and simultaneously calculates, adjusts and transmits its vision – but not in a linear fashion, say from left to right or from top to bottom – rather, it transpires point by point, in line with the momentary "decision" of the computer, or rather, in accordance with its calculations. During the exhibition, the laptop is going to produce one portrait, or croquis, per day. These portraits are going to be exhibited in the space and thus become a new (self-referential) element in the laptop’s field of vision."

(excepert form the text by Ida Hiršenfelder)

MORE: www.aksioma.org/selfportrait/index.html

Production:
Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2013
Artistic Director: Janez Janša
Producer: Marcela Okretič
Executive Producer: Sonja Grdina
Public Relations: Mojca Zupanič
Technician: Valter Udovičić
The programme of Aksioma Institute is supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.
Sponsor: Datacenter d.o.o.

Ida Hiršenfelder is an art critic and author who studied Sinology, and for a time, lived and studied in Beijing. Since 2007 she is preoccupied with building a material and on-line archive of video art DIVA Station at SCCA, Centre for Contemporary Arts-Ljubljana. Henceforward, archives and their disappearance – the digital life and the digital afterlife – became her predominant interest. She collaborates with Ljudmila – Ljubljana Digital Media Lab as an artistic advisor, and with Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Arts, Ljubljana as a text writer. For years, she publishes on media art, contemporary art and feminism at an alternative radio station Radio Student, Dnevnik Daily, Art Worlds Magazine, Maska Magazine, she blogged at HAIP Festival [hack/act/interact/progress], Digicult.it and published texts in numerous exhibition catalogues. She often conducts round-tables and public discussions; but essentially she remains a radio person – recording immersive sounds and strange conversations at any given chance. Lately, she solders small electronic noise gadgets with Theremidi Orchestra, driven by the love for machines, electronics and devices.

[Published April 2, 2014]