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</o:shapelayout></xml><![endif]--></head><body lang=EN-GB link="#0563C1" vlink="#954F72"><div class=WordSection1><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'>Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, is glad to announce:<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Nika Oblak & Primož Novak<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><i><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>And Now for Something Completely Different 10<o:p></o:p></span></i></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'>Solo exhibition<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Aksioma | Project Space<o:p></o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Komenskega 18, Ljubljana<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Exhibition opening: </span></b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Wednesday, 12 June 2019 at 7 pm<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Open through: </span></b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>12 July 2019<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;background:white'><a href="https://aksioma.org/oblak-novak/index.html"><span lang=EN-GB>aksioma.org/oblak-novak</span></a></span><span class=MsoHyperlink><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;background:white'><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoBodyText style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt'><b><span lang=SL style='color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'>A man is trapped inside a screen, walking endlessly. His movements, careful and repetitive, generate a rhythmic, hypnotic sound. As he moves, the rectangular screen moves too, rotating like a big hamster wheel. <i>Where do we come from? What are we? Where are we going?</i> is a kinetic video installation that playfully reflects on our contemporary condition, depicting humans in a perpetual and pointless engagement with technological devices. </span><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Our device s<span style='color:black'>creens are portals to other dimensions: they help us to learn</span> and <span style='color:black'>remember, to create, and e</span>ven to <span style='color:black'>connect with each other, but at the same time they are powerful traps. Locking our eyes and our attention, </span>they <span style='color:black'>can become prisons, preventing us to establish more profound and complex relationships with the world and the people around us. The more we use the machine, the more we tend to resemble it: like Charlie Chaplin in <i>Modern Times, </i>when he morphs into a human screwdriver, the man inside the LCD adapts to the screen</span>’s<span style='color:black'> movements and limit</span>ations<span style='color:black'>, transforming himself into a gear of the mechanism. In a wider sense, the work can also be considered a reflection on progress itself: we are constantly moving but making no real advancement, forced into hectic activity with no clear purpose. The title chosen for the </span>work<span style='color:black'>, which is taken after Paul Gauguin’s iconic </span>painting <i><span style='color:black'>D'ou Venons Nous / Que Sommes Nous / </span>Où <span style='color:black'>Allons Nous </span></i><span style='color:black'>(1897), reinforces this idea.<a name="_fm2bj9c6z8v7"></a><o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span lang=SL style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'>Nika Oblak </span><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>& <span style='color:black'>Primoz Novak use technology as a self-reflection tool; they build complex machines capable of bridging the physical and the virtual, the digital and the mechanical, the natural and the artificial. Since 2003, they have produced a large </span>number <span style='color:black'>of projects, including performances, films, photography and installations, that together constitute an ongoing investigation on contemporary life, focusing on its most controversial aspects: the traps of consumerism, the oppressive structures of work and politics, the ambiguous relationship between reality and fiction, the hidden perils of an uncritical use of technologies. In <i>The Box </i>(2005), for example, we see the artists inside a </span>TV <span style='color:black'>screen, trying to find a way out by pushing and kicking the walls. Their actions infiltrate the physical world by bending the frame of the monitor, but they are never able to break out: the mass media system is a giant rubber wall that won</span>’<span style='color:black'>t let us escape its influence, no matter how hard we try. This idea of helplessly trying to establish a physical connection between what</span>’<span style='color:black'>s inside the screen and what</span>’<span style='color:black'>s outside, opening a breach, reminds us of <i>The</i> <i>Last Nine Minutes</i> (1977), a seminal performance by American artist Douglas Davis. Like many other artists of the period, Davis </span>engaged<span style='color:black'> in a profound reflection about the rising world of telecommunication, considering its profound impact on human consciousness and social relationships. Despite these similarities, however, Oblak </span>&<span style='color:black'> Novak</span>’<span style='color:black'>s work is very different, aesthetically and conceptually: humans today are not just exploring new tools of communication, they are completely fused with them, to the point of not being able to recogni</span>s<span style='color:black'>e their true impact. To describe this new situation, the artists build alternative machines, <i>ironic devices </i>capable of depicting in a very accurate way our daily life: a circle of recursive actions that are both entertaining and exhausting.<o:p></o:p></span></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'>In <i>Endless Column </i>(2017), which contains a direct visual reference to the work of media art pioneer Nam June Paik but also pays homage to avant-garde sculptor Constantin Brancusi, the protagonist tries to balance several monitor on her head, in a circus-like performance. All of her attention is focused on the action of keeping everything in place, without losing a single piece. In a world saturated with media contents, and surrounded by devices that continuously demand our attention, we always feel challenged, chased, and in the process of missing something. Distracted by this impossible task of managing everything, we slowly turn into entertaining machine ourselves, becoming part of the global media spectacle.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;color:black'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=BodyA style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:115%'><i><span lang=SL style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>- Valentina Tanni</span></i><span lang=EN-US style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=BodyA style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:115%'><span lang=SL style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=BodyA style='margin-bottom:0cm;margin-bottom:.0001pt;text-align:justify;line-height:115%'><span lang=SL style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Nika Oblak & Primoz Novak</span></b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'> have been working collectively since 2003. In their art practice they examine the influence of media and capital on contemporary society, dissecting its visual and linguistic structure. Oblak & Novak have exhibited worldwide, in venues like the Sharjah Biennial (AE), Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo (JP), Istanbul Biennial (TR), Biennale Cuvee, Linz (AT), Transmediale Berlin (DE), FILE Sao Paulo (BR) ... They have received numerous grants and awards, including the CYNETART Award by the Trans-Media-Akademie Hellerau in Dresden (DE), an honorary mention of art critics at Biennale WRO, Wroclaw (PL), the White Aphroid Award for artistic achievement by MMC KIBLA, Maribor (SI) and a Rihard Jakopic honorable mention, awarded by the Slovenian Association of Fine Arts Societies, the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana, Moderna galerija and the Slovene Association of Art Critics (SI). Their work can be found at </span><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><a href="http://www.oblak-novak.org"><span style='color:#1155CC'>http://www.oblak-novak.org</span></a></span><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif;mso-fareast-language:SL'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></b></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Production of the exhibition: </span></b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2019<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>The project <i>Where Do We Come From? What Are We? Where Are We Going? </i>is a co-production between Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, KID KIBLA and Asia Culture Center.<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal style='text-align:justify'><b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>Supported by: </span></b><span style='font-family:"Times New Roman",serif'>The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.<b><o:p></o:p></b></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><o:p> </o:p></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>Marcela Okretič<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>Aksioma | Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>Jakopičeva 11, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'><o:p> </o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>Aksioma | Project Space<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>Komenskega 18, 1000 Ljubljana, Slovenia<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>tel.: + 386 – (0)590 54360<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>gsm: + 386 – (0)41 – 250830<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>e-mail: marcela@aksioma.org<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span style='font-size:10.0pt;font-family:"Courier New";mso-fareast-language:EN-GB'>www.aksioma.org<o:p></o:p></span></p><p class=MsoNormal><span lang=IT><o:p> </o:p></span></p></div></body></html>