Author of the text: Jovana Pikulić
Exhibitions have various audiences, but the most beautiful audience are children. The reason for this is that children are the most honest audience who, often harshly, communicate their impressions of a work of art, and getting them interested is a real feat. Precisely for this reason, I have to look back on an interesting visit to the Balkan Cinema that happened last year, during the Second World exhibition. Children from a Novi Beograd school came to see this interesting exhibition, which was set up primarily thanks to the generous hospitality of colleagues from the Center for the Promotion of Science. Many years of experience in expert guidance through exhibitions did not reduce my feeling of fear to stand in front of this awkward audience, which, in most cases, is not familiar with the artistic theories behind the white square on a white background, the exhibition of urinals and found objects, performances with a pile of bones and the like. modern and postmodern phenomena – nor are they very interested. The beauty of art is that it exists through the eyes of the observer, and the beauty of professional guidance is to put oneself in the position of the observer in order to get closer to a work of art. Lubarda equated artists with transistors who only transmit their art from another place, from some higher spheres of the spirit, but the same can be said for curators and guides who work in museums and galleries. Their skill is not limited to interpreting the artist’s intentions (which is impossible), but to weaving a new story that will bring the work closer to visitors. Precisely for this reason, no professional guidance is the same.
The magic of this guidance was in the children’s reactions. I have to admit that for days after this visit, I thought about their excited faces with a warm feeling that an exhibition is a really important thing, which is able to change individuals, stimulate thinking, change the world. The theme of the exhibition contributed to the children’s enthusiasm – art and science. Most of the exhibited artists participated in the Art and Science programs of the Center for the Promotion of Science and developed under the auspices of this institution, which properly promotes the symbiosis of science and art. New media is something that is close to the younger generations who grow up on social networks and cannot imagine a world without mobile phones. It is precisely for this reason that this symbiosis is very important. Her goal is to bring art back to life, which nowadays also takes place in the world of technology and media.
The highlight of the visit was Milan Ličina’s work Transinformator.Ličina’s light installation is the only work from the Second World exhibition that was specially produced, designed for the needs of this exhibition. His work dedicated to Tesla was conceived five minutes after we sat down for coffee, with the exclamation “I have an idea!” (nothing hit his head on that occasion…), and realized soon after. His enthusiasm at that moment was no less than the enthusiasm of the children who observed the realized work during the visit. The installation was placed on level -2 of the Balkan Cinema, where it created a micro-ambiance reminiscent of the entrance to a large oracle. Sentences attributed to Tesla were projected on the wall, generated by a computer program trained through the analysis of authentic written sources of the scientist himself, various texts and interviews of dubious authenticity, in order to copy the style of expression of both Tesla and the construction of fake news headlines. The sentences were generated with a display of Tesla’s asynchronous motor, and their creation was accompanied by the words “I GIVE UP TO THE ETHER” and light pulses that communicate data transmission and pulsation of electromagnetic waves. Ličina carefully created the illusion of Tesla deliberately writing in Cyrillic script, while his lexicon and manner of expression were copied with the intention that the veracity of the attribution of sentences to Tesla would not be doubted. Licin’s Tesla is like the Wizard of Oz. He exists only as a false image, an idea, while someone else puts the words in his mouth. If those words were unmeasured, inappropriate to what we believe Tesla could say, the curtain would open and the illusion would disappear. Behind his curtain stands a computer algorithm, the wizard of modern times.
There is already a lot of misinformation, myths and legends circulating about Tesla, and this is exactly what the idea of Transinformator is based on. Tesla has been elevated to the rank of a national hero, to whom songs are dedicated, while the question of his identity is circulating in the media. Is the media Tesla more real than Ličina’s? The children stepped into the Transinformator area very carefully, as if they were stepping into a holy place. We spent the next few minutes asking Tesla various questions, and he provided cryptic prophetic answers. Did the installation or Tesla’s spirit answer us? Everyone knows that Tesla mastered science so much that he was able to travel through time and communicate with civilizations unknown to us. If the children did not have information about the installation itself and its creation, they would probably believe that these are the real statements of the author.
This anecdote has an important message: children form their personalities based on what they encounter and their impressions of those personalities and phenomena. The information provided to them at an early age is crucial to their development, and the world needs a little idealism and beauty. Museums and galleries are not only spaces with works of art – they also have curators, gallerists, volunteers, who foster the pedagogical role of these organizations and institutions.
Art can change the world!
Long live art!