The project Big Slovenia explores the visual appearance of Slovenian territory on the maps of Europe and the world. Based on initial findings, the Republic of Slovenia is very decorative.

Exhibitions:

• 05.10.2004 – 24.10.2004 P74 Gallery, Ljubljana
• 20.12.2004 – 28.02.2005 Museum of Modern Art, Ljubljana

This is a collaborative project I did with Vuk Ćosić, which explores the very different ways Slovenia is depicted on European and World maps.

Execution:

16 high quality photo prints (each 50cm x 50cm)

Thoughts:

Working on this project was an interesting experience for a number of reasons. First of all, our backgrounds are not as similar as they appear. We’ve both worked in the internet industry, but while Vuk works mostly with ideas and concepts, my work has been of much more technical nature. Also, we have very different approaches. While Vuk stresses simplicity and directness, I enjoy doing things in a more complex way, a deformity I developed so I could keep myself interested in the tons of similar commercial projects I had been doing over the years. I guess we met halfway on this project. Another peculiarity is the static and non-interactive nature of the presentation, which one could describe as post-net-art.

We never really talked about the concept because it’s so simple and self-explanatory, we just agreed it’s very amusing.
However, here are some of my own thoughts which relate to it:

The 16 images deal on one hand with the fact that newer (Eastern) European countries are relatively unknown and easily confused by foreigners, and on the other hand with Slovenia’s preocupation with national borders, national identity and the absence of a unifying vision with which to present itself to the World. Thus, it is depicted as an ameboid shape, rendered unrecognizable on maps with a regular scale. In a way, without the historical and geographical context that defines it, it becomes unimportant and is engulfed by the larger stuctures towards which it is running.

An alternative cut of The Matrix Reloaded, which hopefully corrects some problems of the original release. Using only officially released material (the movie itself, video segments from Enter the Matrix, and the soundtrack), it offers a different viewing experience while keeping or even raising the integrity of the movie.

Screenings:

• Various private screenings

Execution:

Video.

Involvement:

• Physical medium

Thoughts:

What started as an exercise in video editing at first, turned out to be quite an undertaking for me in the fall of 2003. I remember watching Reloaded at the cinema and thinking, “How could this have been done by the same people?” If the first movie, although very stylish, had very strong characters involved in dialogs about concepts that spawned so much debate over the state of our world and the constructed reality in which we lead our everyday lives, the sequel was some sort of a soap-opera compared to it. The philosophical discourse sounds unconvincing, the dialogues forced and unnecessarily cryptic. By the end of the movie, I felt like I was watching a two-hour trailer, a sequence of disembodied scenes.

Because I didn’t exactly know why it bothered me so much, I watched the movie over and over, trying to examine its weak points, thinking, “If someone just cut this little part of dialogue here, and moved this scene over there, maybe it wouldn’t suck this much.” As with all things, the Devil is in the details, and details can increase or diminish credibility. Then I thought, why don’t I take the opening sequence and try to give it more rhythm. It looked pretty good, so I tried recutting another scene. All of a sudden, I was twenty minutes into the movie and there was no more turning back.

Two months later, I did a private screening party for close friends whose opinion I value very much and they were all floored by the result. The amazement on their face at the fact that such a thing could be achieved at home was priceless. According to them, the story in this cut has a nice flow and it ultimately makes more sense. Even the original’s cheezier moments look a bit more convincing in this cut.

Obviously, since this was my first ever video project, there are some glitches here and there due to technical issues I didn’t yet know how to solve. Other than that, even I’m amazed. I was also afraid of any possible inconsistencies between this version and Revolutions, which hadn’t come out yet, but there were none and it actually made the last installment even more enjoyable for me.

This project was not done for any financial gain and I don’t intend to claim ownership or authorsip over the final product or any material used in it. I consider it a proof-of-concept experiment as well as an art intervention into the media space. Rather than expressing my criticism verbally, I choose to present it visually.