Milan Ličina is a new media designer and creative technologist from Belgrade, born in 1990. Since 2012 he has actively exhibited and participated in numerous group shows and festivals dedicated to art and technology. In addition to his international commercial and artistic projects, Milan is also involved in academic work through promotion of STEAM education and is currently employed as an assistant professor at the Faculty of Digital Arts.
His praxis relies on the fields of emerging technologies and experience design; one of his artworks was exhibited at the Balkan Cinema.
Your artwork Transinformer, showcased at the exhibition “Another World”, deals with the personality cult by using software which generates alleged Tesla’s statements and thoughts based on available textual sources. This work opens up a whole series of possible questions – not only those addressing the personality cult but also the popular concept of post-truth and the influence that social networks and an increasing number of unverified famous figures’ quotes have on people. Which of these segments of the work do you find most important?
Transinformer was part of a real-time generative art. The work was made by using algorithms for natural language processing – techniques which are nowadays widely perceived as the utilization of “artificial intelligence”. Computer program adapted for this installation was trained through the analysis of authentic sources written by the scientist himself and a slew of texts and interviews of questionable origin. In the same manner, attempting to imitate Tesla’s way of talking, it constructed original false quotes by the Serbian scientist.
Since the work was initially created for the exhibition that was meant to mark the inventor’s birthday, I found my inspiration in the very mystical presentation of Tesla himself. However, right from the start, the work’s objective was to question the influence of made-up and fabricated authorities found in the new millennium media. Even by its very title, the work questions whether the provided information was transformed and shaped in order to intentionally cause confusion by abusing people’s trust in notable figures from the national history or public, cultural and political life. At the same time, it questions the ethics of using these figures as instruments of propaganda, when it is not an individual but a machine that is responsible for creating fake content and consequences of misinterpretation.
I’d say that the main motif to create such concept was provoked by the influence of instant informing without verifying the facts that are much too often used as arguments in social discussions; the idea was to investigate people’s readiness to doubt validity of any claim that calls for action in someone’s name. Due to its marked political undertone, post-truth is redundant in my artwork: I do not wish to label technology as a means for dogmatization, but rather incite thinking about the necessity to accept responsibility for disseminating perfunctory ideologies. However, defactualization, as an instrument of misconception, is an integral part of the artwork’s sub-context.
Relationship between art, science and technology is critical for your work, and this question is explored not only in the exhibition Another World, but also in other exhibitions, such as art+science+makers. How do you see the attitude of arts audiences toward science – do you think they feel suspicious about its “rigidity” and in what way do you try to present science in the context of art?
Science and art are intertwined in one shared goal – raising questions. Curiosity is critical for both disciplines. For an artist, the creative process is as important as the resulting artwork, which marks the completion of a certain artistic and contextual expression that will eventually resonate with the audience. On the other hand, science provides facts, proofs and conclusions as arguments for the process, which either crown its completion or provide its continuation in the next stage of research.
What speaks to audiences is not only the obvious interpretation of scientific experiments, but also their recognition of such collaborations as derivatives resulting from an interdisciplinary approach. In other words, they understand that the showcased work is not only an attempt of science to communicate through art, nor is art only an illustration of the particular scientific question. In actuality, they jointly encourage us to think about ourselves and our surroundings.
I perceive technology as a medium. I do not work within its limitations, but strive to create unique experiences and adapt them to my own ideas. Knowing or upgrading the existing approaches in visual artwork, and especially creating new technical and technological ones is, for me, as exciting as examining the shade of the colour I am using, or devising an artistic concept.
I wish to establish such approach primarily through exhibitive activities. With the Centre for Promotion of Science, I have produced several artworks through different art+science programs, and was one of the national award winners. Also, through the project EU AILab, I had an opportunity to meet and exchange ideas with international makers in the field. I transposed this experience to my work in the exhibition Another World staged by the Saša Marčeta Foundation at the Balkan Cinema. In short, my approach was led by the desire to introduce technology as a means of artistic expression.
You are an active designer; among other projects, you are the author of the Foundation’s visual contents. How much liberty and room for innovation and personal creativity do you have in this field, given the applied and commissioned nature of the job ?
Since my formal education is related to design, I am of the opinion that designers have a set of cognitive tools for addressing various challenges in communication and message conveyance. I make no difference between commercial projects and experiments – I believe in process.
The commercial nature of design does not necessarily mean it will be deprived of the author’s highest aesthetic reaches; although our job is to tell a story about a product, brand or organization, we incorporate our own sensibility and visual language we have been building throughout our careers. I think that some of my most successful designs were created for the projects that at first seemed rather dull. Such assignments gave me an opportunity to master new skills, explore and introduce some unexpected elements – to think outside the box. The more inaccessible a certain topic seems to be, the more exciting it becomes to try to interpret it; we are able to create from the position of how we feel about a topic, and not what we think is expected from us. So, not only do I see but I openly take advantage of the freedom to express my creativity in the commercial work. At the same time, the quality of your work can earn you recognition, and that implies constant self-improvement.
I am particularly glad that through the collaboration with the Saša Marčeta Foundation I have come up with several visual solutions for the Balkan Cinema and thus participated in the new chapter of this significant Belgrade cultural monument.