A NEW INTERVENTION OF THE KARKATAG ART COLLECTIVE

The interactive digital automaton of the Karkatag art collective, called 3D InstaStaffetta semiautomatico, will be presented on August 22 in the Museum of Yugoslavia. This is the second of a total of three automata, which are realized as part of the artistic work n(ex)t y(o)u/new revisionism, as a direct reaction of artists to the current exhibition Museum Laboratory, which portrays a significant part of the Museum of Yugoslavia fund.

The Museum curators designed and organized a series of interventions in the context of this exhibition, inviting relevant experts, artists and other associates to exchange ideas about the Yugoslav heritage through joint work. An example of such dialogue is the art project of the Karkatag collective, the third and final phase of which will be realized in October 2020.

The automaton exhibited on this occasion is intended for the serial production of the baton that won the public competition for the Next You Relay of Youth of the New Generation. The topic of the competition, which the artists publicized in May, was a modern interpretation of the relay of youth and consideration of possible meanings and formal solutions of this object today. The audience was invited to vote on social media and choose the best solutions, and the authors, whose conceptual design was chosen, were Nađa Kračunović, Đurđa Garčević, Ljubica Grubić and Uroš Ranković. The baton was produced in 3D printing technology exclusively, with the direct participation of visitors who initiated and authorized the printing process.

“Playing with the production processes of an object conceived as the bearer of the ‘new generation’ ideology, 3D InstaStaffetta semiautomatico examines ways of materializing ideological values ​​by exploiting impetus that accompanies the emergence of each new technology (in this case, 3D printing),” members of the Karkatag collective say, adding,

“By enabling visitors to the Museum to access the collective (hyper)production of the new baton by simple mechanical action, this work seeks to confront the audience with the absence of major ideological projects today, the absence skillfully hidden behind marketing tricks and populism, and the promise of new, advanced technologies.”