we make something art or devine when we don't understand it

why a space program as a start?

maybe because we were always fascinated with the unknown, even with oblivion. so starting out with a complex system of orders and signs seemed the right idea. it’s the same question as: “why art?” and: “what is art?” after a while we are forced to realize that there is no answer to those questions. and there shouldn’t be. because if we try to answer those we force ourselves to analyze things starting from a starting point where we don’t actually even try to analyze the real structure we just presume that it’s not supposed to be understood. that’s the answer to why a space program. that’s the answer to why there’s no rural view of animals and other things but complex systems that force us to understand how things within them work.

mankind was always fascinated with traveling. a hundred years ago it was traveling through time, traveling to the moon. today it’s just time… or is it?

let’s take ikarus as a typical space program. are space programs really something that was meant to be known to every day people, or they should just be fascinated with the width and the way this shining rocket leaves for the big empty unknown called space? the same question is the one that for theoretical cosmonauts asked themselves. why should we divide thing to artistic and none-artistic, and why should we understand all of it. so that’s why ikarus was born. not as a mean to understand or even explain things but to raise even more questions. or to just fascinate people with symbols. so we exploit ikarus as a communication device. the way it’s designed it doesn’t really work as a communication device because it enables us to only send signals to it and never really get any feedback. which symbolizes every day systems. even if u call something democracy it doesn’t mean that u get a part in the decision making process. it just feels like you actually made something; that you were able to make a change. your vote either get’s lost in the majority or just doesn’t make it there. so that’s how Ikarus works. it uses the power we gave symbols that surround us. starting with a cross as the main sign. main starting with the way our perception of the space around us work all the way to the “one and only” religion. the materials used for the built are what we cal: “object trouve”. So they already bring their stories with them. those stories have their power so we start from using those. i guess it’s not finding a universal code in the understanding of the simplest formula:

sign + sign (keeping in mind the interaction between them) = system (reaction)

but it works more as trying to predict the reaction people have to certain symbols. so starting off from a cross that was taken from an old church and thrown away and later recuperated by danaja and used as a ready made object, or more a ready made story behind the object. i could talk about the chemical construction of iron but nature has it’s own way to change things. the cross was struck by lightning several times so it has a structure of it’s own. through our researches we tried to establish if it’s chemical structure was altered to but we could not figure it out so we were left with the myth that the cross functions in a totally different way than it used to, a thing that we discovered through the process. so it shows us a different layer of mythology behind the cross as a symbol.

an another layer was shown to the story of the symbols after the actual rocket was built, by a person that I deeply respect in terms of being an urban and suburban mythologist as well as a very good photographer. since there is no bleeding figure hanging on the cross we can’t really speak about the fallen angel or another fallen mythological flyer but we automatically tend to connect the cross to “Your savior Jesus Christ”. his image took a totally different place in my life since nat avino towsen pointed out the fact that he was supposed to come back and wondered if he wanted to be reminded all the time about the way he died? so my point is: does it mean that the original story of jesus christ being the first (or second, not really sure of the timing since both are just myths) mythological flyer? the answer is no. it just means adding another layer to the myth behind the rocket ikarus. or just letting it go by. as we do all the time. as our brain does all the time.

so the answer to the questions: “is it art and how do you expect people to understand it without an explanation?” would be, that no body expects people to understand everything. your brain is bombarded with 2.000.000, 00 information per minute. so the human body has developed a perfect system to defend us by forgetting certain things. so the whole project is just using other myths that u can not escape as fuel. as something that powers our rocket without knowing. subconsciously. and just from time to time turn on your TV and be fascinated with the theoretical flame that ikarus leaves behind as it goes across both the media and sub media space of your minds.

(iakrus is dedicated to the life and work of ing. jovanovič)

Ikarus- communication from space between space and time

"1 transmitter
10.000 receivers"

goebbels



our ever day life is surrounded by mass media taking the place of the main means of communication. every single medium works on the same principals. You have a transmitter on one side, and a receiver on the other. in between them u have air through which they try to send their messages. this forms the communication circle between them. the information that is being sent from the transmitter to the receiver must be a clear messages. so it's logical. use one transmitter and a receiver that decodes messages and u get communication. it starts to be hard as soon as u start to use different transmitters and receivers. or even replace the outer shape of the message.

so let's say art is a mass medium. the artist becomes a transmitter and the audience the receivers. they use visual pieces as means of communication. the transmitter has to analyze the range of his audience and the way they understand and receive information. this range is affected by the space and time in which the communication is taking place. by knowing the space in which we project our messages we can get to know and to understand what the average receivers is going to be and predict the reactions and actions to certain symbols. since art is a mass medium is always affected by the political system and the situations in all the system surrounding the audience. it works as a reaction to it or as an action against it. understanding the way people react to their sorroundings makes it easier to understand how they either understand or react to art in general or separate messages.

this fact shows that there is a need to have theory that connects and explains this actions and reactions. because understanding the medium and your audience gives u a wider view and a better chance to get your message across. the artist as the transformer has to understand the code and decoding system of the audience to communicate with them and at the same time understand the structure of the medium. every medium is composed by the medial (visual) part and the sub medial (theoretical) space. their job is to interact with the audience back to back. the understanding of this system enables the artist to use it when working on multimedia projects.

the information in the field of multimedia takes different shapes. they have to maintain an outer form that fits the demands of the audience. we have to remember that in the case of artistic communication the message isn't just a fictional message but has an outer form and it's seen all the time by the audience. this gives us a multi-layered system in which the information itself works on the same principal as the whole system. the information assumes the form of the system. this demands again the understanding of the whole system to help communication.

art works, or can be compared to several other mediums and systems. it's structure works on the princips of semantics, the communication with the audience or market works on the principals of economy. art takes, the same way that written language does, the smallest symbol (letter) and connects them between them. the way they react to each is affected by their outer shape and their information space as well as the negative space (surroundings). so the interaction between them forms a new complex symbol (word). this symbol in connection to others forms a picture (text). choosing the right way and means of communication (language) determines the number of people that are going to understand its message. on the same time symbols alone carry a message and have an outer shape of their own (outer shape of the text or single words) because they must fulfill the audience's need for an esthetic or non esthetic appearance of the symbols. for the understanding of that take the word house. you can not separate the word from the feeling it creates. or separate the vocal image of the word to the visual appearance of the word when you write it down. that shows that using symbols that u understand and analyze in a picture or any other form of art or visual communication media, you create and predict the reactions that your audience has. they, contrary to what the general opinion is, don't have to be esthetical, depends on the message that they are carrying.
the communication with the audience, on the other hand, is a relatively new approach in art. to understand that we have to look further back in the development of art and forms of artistic expressions. until the start of impressionism in the late eighteen hundreds art used to be a medium that would reflect and capture only every day moments. An artist would not produce paintings or sculptures by his own decision. most of the works were ordered by either rich families or the church. art wasn't a form of expression but was more a reflection of reality. This change was also a reaction to the development of photography. so art before that wasn't art as we understand it today (it's still hard to define and understand the meaning of the word art and what it represents). this doesn't necessarily mean that there were no artists before that just that they were more craftsmen. brilliant craftsmen. the fact that they were producing more or less ordered art gave them a very narrow choice of concepts to use.

knowing these facts helps to understand why art associated to economy. not only meaning the place or the fact that demand and consumption meet in a place but more the fact that even a very free orientated and open system as art is sometimes affected by the demand on the market. that makes modern art a perfect economical system that demands communication between space and time.

the system within

danaja is divided into four programs:

sun: Ikarus as the space research program for broadcasting information fueled by the power of symbolism.

water: Mechanical Soča trout as the symbolism preservation apparatus

air: Fazan003 as the flying tractor

freedom: the last faze of development within all the systems.

Ikarus

the programs are the result of researches and own theories. All the programs are connected in a net, working as real time test bunnies for the theories that they are based on.

remind me...

of the system




knowing the symbols
and the outer shape of the system
you can change it's parts





every day things
turn into dreams

ready made cocept

"the symbols are never guilty for the stories associated to them, or any history related facts about people who either used or abused them."

j. Bonča[1]

the porpoise is to learn how to use the ready made concept of the symbol. We learn how to decode the "story[2]" that the symbol carries from its past lives and use it as and in communication. this process is based on self testing and exploring past and present cultural and political systems that created and destroyed it. by doing so we can predict what reactions it causes in the systems similar or close to the one that created it and analyze, again with testing and broadcasting of the symbol, what its role is and how it's going to perform in systems outside its comfortable zone.

broadcasting every symbol through different campaigns and systems of presentation that are art related. the structure is based on the same principals as pop orientated mass media of the modern world such as internet. it's mainly self powered which gives it the advantage of being autonomous. all the processes within the organization are analogue and schematic.

when created the symbols adopt the outer appearance and the structure from their "lifetime" and applying that same in the time and space in which they are projected.


[1] Jaka Bonča Slovenian architect and respected Art theory teacher on whose work we base a lot of theories and facts
[2] story as the meaning of a symbol and the associations to people or systems that used it

The rules, role and structure of the system, and it's components

"i'll turn into the illusion
that people have of me.
since i never met myself
it makes sence doesn't it?"

the system is analysed throug it's structure and gives us a clear view of it's components and relations between them. when familiar with them we have the chance to operate with it's space and time on our own will. that creates the post moment in wich the ability to change both, time and space, creates it's own theoretical time machine, that gives us the power to travel within the boundrys of space and time of certain systems. so every system becomes transparent and replecable.

knowing the structure and nature of the system we are able to isolate it's symbols as elements that build it, time and space as boundrys that give to every system it's outer shape and form and the know-how to repplicate and reuse every element.

each symbol works as a part of the big apparatus called art piece, for a better expression through different media and better understanding for the masses. the expression art is used mainly becouse it gives us the space and theorys needed for the realisation of the projects. The language used becomes mainly visual re-usable.



System as the network connecting and sharing informations between it's own stories and the awdience.

Re-usable as recycable in mass reproducable media

"language is a system of orders, not an information carrier"

gilles deleuze

Danaja Sybolysm monumental tutorship

"Art is noble mission that demands
FANATISM"
laibach



danaja was created as a need for a mechanism able to perform sytematical analysations and preservation of sybols and sybolysm. each sybol is analysed in it's original form of appearence and through different systems, political and cultural in order to understand it's full form and power and later used as an elment for visual communication. visual communication and visual debate are used to broadcast thoughts and systems generated within them. they become sytems that are filled by the aura of artistic expresion and the ability to keep the rate of information transfer that's expected by a a modern medium and still work on analogue principals. meaning that it preserves tradition in the field of visual communication and upgrades it with the knowledge of modern capitalism and consumarism fuled mediums. so it maintains it's tottalitarian role in therms of background storries and upgrades it with the abbility of fast communication and mass spreadibility.

so it becomes a militant system of visual communication and story telling. symbol as the smallest part of the system structure, similar to the point in painting or pixle in digital media