The mayor of Slavonski Brod, Dr. Mirko Duspara, handed over contracts to non-governmental organizations that promote culture in the city.
The president of the NGO Culture, Media and Education – ARTHEA, Ph.D Vesna Srnic signed a contract for the new project Indeterminate Art.
Photo: courtesy of the City Hall
MV
Culture, media and education – ARTHEA and I personally, as the president and author of the project, strive to introduce a new artistic practice into intergenerational education and influence the progressiveness of the agency system and culture in a local and global sense.
It is difficult to express in words about such a complex and demanding visual and sound performance! That is exactly why it is titled as “Modular Performance: The Lighthouse of Slavonska Brod”.
It is about the simultaneous orchestration of a performative action, multimedia tasks for students and an online scientific symposium with professors and doctors from Croatia and abroad! The performance consisted of a visual part (creating the lighthouse) and a sound part (generated plant sounds).The project was supported by two ministries: the Ministry of Science and Education and the Ministry of Culture and Media of the Republic of Croatia and the City of Slavonski Brod.
PhD Vesna Srnic, ARTHEA president, author
More in Croatian: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009361466293
HRT – Croatian National Television – Croatia Today (by mobile phone, I do not own the content, it is just for the educational purpose.)
Local television SBTV on performance Modular performance: Lighthouse to Slavonski Brod.
PUBLICATION (in Croatian)
1.4.2023. / 12:05 – 12:20 p.m., on the town square / Live streaming at https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100009361466293
Scientific/artistic performance on intergenerational education, online scientific symposium with multimedia seminar for the UNISB students.
Dr Srnic was an official speaker at the World Education Summit 2023 in the United Kingdom, from 20 to 23 March 2023. The WES website address is https://www.worldedsummit.com/ and the section is Educators-Platform/Research Bites. Dr. Srnic spoke about her scientific and artistic works in the video presentation Modular Performative Education as Science.
Dr Srnic is invited to be an official speaker at the World Education Summit 2023 in the United Kingdom, in March. You can find her speaker profile on the WES website here: https://www.worldedsummit.com/speakers/dr-vesna-srnic/, as well as announcement and session graphics. She will speak on her scientific and artistic works in Modular Performative Education as Science presentation.
A second exhibition in “the Vlaho Bukovac in Europe exhibition series” in the Klovićevi dvori Gallery is opened from February 17th to May 22nd, 2022, in a year in which we commemorate the 100th anniversary of Bukovac’s death. The theme of this long-anticipated second exhibition is Bukovac’s life and the development of his Zagreb oeuvre, when he became the central figure of public cultural life, a great mentor to a young generation of artists, and when his seductive colorism influenced a whole generation of Zagreb painters, named the Zagreb School.
The first exhibition, Vlaho Bukovac in Paris, 1878 – 1892, held in 2018, dealt with his amateur work in North America, his schooling and professional maturation in Paris, short work stays in England, as well as fruitful breaks in Croatia, until his final return home.
With the courtesy of Klovicevi dvori
MV
On 27th March, 2022 because of the covid infection of moderator Srećko Horvat, Philosophy theater’s substitute Boris Buden was engaged to talk to the guest from Slovenia – Dr. Renata Salecl.
PhD. Renata Salecl (1962) is a Slovenian philosopher and sociologist. She holds a professorship at Birkbeck College, University of London and lectures at Cardozo School of Law (New York), on Psychoanalysis and Law. Her books have been translated into fifteen languages – Sexuation (2000), On anxiety (2004), Choice (2010), A passion for ignorance (2020), Čovjek je čovjeku virus (Man is a virus to man, 2021). In 2017, she was elected as a member of the Slovenian Academy of Science.
Extremely lucid moderator and interlocutor Dr. Boris Buden brought affectivity into the peaceful flow of Dr. Salecl’s thoughts.
She elaborated her critical theory on late capitalist politics, Lacanian psychoanalysis and civic activism. Dr. Salecl stated some well known changes that the coronavirus pandemic brings to our lives. Buden asked her about the type of theory in writing the columns she published in the book on viruses, but she sees it as a column craft, not popular „self-help“.
Moderator asked a very important question on having right to be lazy these days! Salecl negated it. Unfortunately, she did not elaborate on the importance of laziness for creation and art, but only for „doing nothing“ and idleness as such.
Towards the end of the conversation, Buden asked Salecl for her opinion on the current war, and she admitted that she was naive about Russia, that Putin was an enigma to her, adding that he quoted old philosophers like neo-Nazi Dugin and believed in cosmic energy in the Russian people.
An interesting question of the philosopher Buden addressed to Salecl was about the identity of Slovenian philosophy, since books are written in English. Dr. Salecl concluded that it is good they are written in both Slovenian and English, which is more widely read.
PhD. Vesna Srnić
MV
On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the Ivana Brlić Mažuranić Concert and Theater Hall in Slavonski Brod, the Zagreb ensemble Cantus performed three contemporary compositions on 27th February, 2022 in its world-renowned style:
Berislav Šipuš – Četiri pjesme sjećanja / Four songs of remembrance
Ivana Kiš – na na na na
Krešimir Seletković – Suita iz baleta Air / Air Ballet Suite
Conductor: Ivan Josip Skender
Concentration and integrity were holistically woven in demanding sections of aleatory, atonal and asymmetrical music. In other parts mixed-media synaesthetically sounds like those in action or animated films… In moments when the World is buzzing with low frequencies, this music is a gift with its enthusiastic art both when it thunders and when the muses whisper.
MV
Video by MV – with courtesy of Cantus
Portal: Media-via.Net
NGO: Culture, Media and Education – ARTHEA
IBAN: HR7823400091110481403
The Philosophical Theater of the progressive activist Srećko Horvat on 17th January 2022 hosted the world philosopher Slavoj Žižek at the Zagreb Croatian National Theater (HNK) once again. Collaborators as good friends informally (with some swearing) discussed the world power lines.
Congratulating the distinguished French leftist Alain Badiou on his birthday, they found that the dynamics between the left and the right are disappearing on a global level. Žižek claimed that capitalism is turning into a kind of internationalization of organizations and that he sees a communism in that. Namely, the communism occurs at the level of cooperation of powerful organizations.
Furthermore, Žižek believes that it is desirable to reaffirm the state that gives room for maneuver, because people would like changes, but that it “costs them nothing”. As an opponent of the state’s fetishism, Horvat asked his interlocutor a key question about the status and perspective of the left regarding the fossil fuel economy and the green new deal, thus isn’t the left in contradiction in the search for a “way out”? On the example of Bolivia, Žižek argued that the left must face power/government and stop being too comfortable… no one needs poverty. Horvat encouraged the discussion by claiming that it was a “catch-up” and that in this way the left is doing the same as the right. Žižek noticed the difference: the left should be pragmatic and remove comfort. Horvat opposed the forcing of the state, explaining that the state = nation and affirm that he is an anarchist. Žižek commented on the view that the state is a nation by claiming that Marxism really needs to be corrected. Srećko Horvat insisted on a certain subversive and insider action within the state, since he, as one of the founders of DiEM25, has fought extremely pragmatically on several levels, for permaculture, digital currencies, gender equality, artistic and philosophical emancipation in general – for the common good!
The question from the audience was about contradictions in the left and how to move forward, and in response, both philosophers agreed that progress is possible only with “the pleasant antagonism”! In his humorous tone, Žižek concluded that “there is no freedom for the enemies of freedom” and that “politics is a perverse thing”.
PhD. Vesna Srnić
MV
Glory: Croatian artists greet Kiki Smith, presents New York’s authentic artist Kiki Smith (1954) with 19 conceptualized multidisciplinary works (sculpture, jacquard tapestry, installation, drawings and graphics) in comparison with the works of 13 Croatian artists who have created over 100 years – Slava Raškaj, Nasta Rojc, Milena Lah, Nives Kavurić Kurtović, Edita Schubert, Vlasta Delimar, etc. – questioning nature, femininity, physicality and mortality, through “a position of solidarity and sisterhood that transcends all current relations of power and planetary glory” as the NMMU director Branko Franceschi said.
Kiki Smith’s reduced, figurative forms are all the more impressive when they use bodily excretions (saliva, blood, urine) and the weaving principle of female intuition, thus creates in jacquard tapestries what Judith Butler calls “bodies that matter.”
Croatian artists also questioned the feminist preoccupation by tearing down the petty-bourgeois dress code, from Naste Rojc’s riding suit (Self-Portrait with a Horse, 1922) to exposing body of Vlasta Delimar (Untitled, 1991).
In a floor installation Soil, 1998-2018 with an impressive fifteen dead crows, Smith accentuated
impressively the existential boundary – mortality and make an introduction to another exhibition: Exploatation of Death. Dying of everything in nature, mortality, often through the process, is the theme of this exhibition. Diana Vlaisavljević’s foreword exhaustively analyzes the presented works through the paradox of death (Judith and Holofernes, 1892 – Bela Čikoš Sesija, The Battle of Grobnik, 1906 – Celestin Medović, Adventure is Adventure, 2004 – Lovro Artuković), “meat is murder” (Dead Sheep, 1935 – Vladimir Becić), eschatology and the end of the world (Flood, 1932 – Krsto Hegedušić, Atomic mushroom – Kamilo Tompa), death as a biological fact (From my garden, 1956 – Ljubo Babić, After all – Stjepan Gračan), final farewells (At the door of death, 1904 – Mirko Rački. Dead child, 1954 – Miljenko Stančić) and death is not the end (Christian hope based on the critique of human weaknesses at the Crucifix, 1989 – Branko Ružić, through depictions of skulls and the motif of dance macabre – Đuro Tiljak, Hrvoje Šercar, Vanja Radauš).
Unlike Kiki Smith’s sincerity and primacy in her approach to existential art, the title Exploatation of Death cannot escape the impression that this is, linguistically speaking, a parasitic position of civilization, and to a sincere artist this depravity through human fear or greed should not be the goal. To conclude in the end of narrative philosophy: “whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent“ (Wittgenstein).
Ph.D Vesna Srnić, MV president
Images by MV: Courtesy of the NMMU
Croatian multimedia exhibition MURTIĆ 100 celebrates the centenary of the birth of the internationally famous Croatian painter of high modernism gestural abstraction Edo Murtić.
To feel liveness in our depths we have to live in constant new, although life more or less delivers boring moments to people. We have to be aware of the contrast: organic spontaneity versus a routine as the brakes by non ritual repetition. The (ritual) routine can calm you down, but if you want to live your meditative center you choose (poetical) presence and the intensity of expression.
To paraphrase the agile curator Branko Franceschi‘s preface to the exhibition – multimedia exhibition MURTIĆ 100 celebrates the centenary of the birth of the internationally famous Croatian painter of high modernism gestural abstraction Edo Murtić, set in the vertical space Home HDLU in Zagreb on three levels: Bačva Gallery (iconic paintings), PM Gallery (the enduring challenges of reality as ati-war themes) and Prsten Gallery (division into abstract and figurative art, graphics and drawings, ceramics and enamel, multimedia installation by Ivan Marušić Klif on mosaics and murals in public spaces).
This exhibition perfectly combines technical multimedia with multimedial art as it stresses the synergy of gesamtkunstwerk.
But the most important is the great work of exhibition booth setup idea in the means of integration of art and intrinsic education: Art workshops A game of Murtić’s colors (for kids between 5 and 10 yrears), Go Big (for kids between 10 and 15 years), Abstraction of Nature (for the elderly), then lecture I Can Paint that too (for high school students and adults) and Reinterpretation of Edo Murtić through street art and finally International Symposium Gesture and Freedom.
To feel liveness in our depths we have to live in constant new. Life more or less delivers boring moments to people. We have to be aware of the contrast: organic spontaneity versus a routine as the brakes by non ritual repetition. The (ritual) routine can calm you down, but if you want to live your meditative center you choose (poetical) presence and the intensity of expression.
The routine as mechanical or machine thinking and using of Artificial intelligence if prevail can stop our freedom. Murtić’s impressive abstract gestural works also oscillate between more or less freedom. Although some works are stuck in authors freestyle routine, enormous vital energy of Edo Murtic stayed to beautify and free our lives.
PhD. Vesna Srnić, docent
MV (photos and video with permission of curator Branko Franceschi)
Professional video of the Zagreb artist Matija Kralj: the international performance Glocal Art: Counterpoint Harmony, held in Slavonski Brod on May 8, 2021. Project author was PhD. Vesna Srnic, composition created by prominent University professor Predrag Repanic in collaboration with Dr. Kruno Martinac, MA Mus. Aljaz Razdevsek, MA Arch. Siniša Tomic and Musician Tomislav Brezicevic. Performance contemporary dancer was Nastasja Stefanic and video art creator Matija Kralj from Zagreb.
Video: On performance at 17:38.
MV
Performance Glocal Rhythms of Emancipation organized by the civil association Culture, Media and Education – ARTHEA and in cooperation with the Elementary School Ivan Goran Kovačić, Crafts School and the Faculty of Education in Osijek, department in Slavonski Brod was performed on Saturday, May 23 on the main city square at 12 o’clock, in front of several hundred citizens.
A group of students attending classes on regular, individualized, adapted and gifted program Marija Cernecki, Luka Mrvelj and Kasijan Kristic presented an urban walk with “marching drums” and electronic music. Moderators were two students of the Faculty of Education in Osijek, department in Slavonski Brod – Marko Mrsic and Andrea Josipovic, and the other 80 students were creating multimedia tasks for the course Media Culture, which is taught by the author of the performance PhD. Vesna Srnic who is also the president of the civil association ARTHEA.
In the scientific part, the project is commented in the publication with scientific articles by 6 eminent scientists: PhD. Lino Veljak, Head of the Department of Ontology at the Faculty of humanities and social sciences, University of Zagreb, Dr Kruno Martinac Associate for Visual Communications from Australia, PhD. Suzana Marjanic, Performance studies theorist from the Institute of Ethnology and Folklore in Zagreb, Dr Divna Vuksanovic, professor at the Faculty of Dramatic Arts and president of the Young peas association from Belgrade, psychiatry specialist MA Jugoslav Gojkovic from the Josip Bencevic Hospital in Slavonski Brod and PhD. Vesna Srnic, research associate at FOOZOS.
All results of the vertical educational and artistic / scientific project are published in printed and digital publication at the social network http://glocal-art.ning.com/ and will be published at the portal of the association Media-Via.Net as well.
The sponsors of the urban performance are the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia and the City of Slavonski Brod.
Culturenet.hr – portal of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, published the announcement of the performance.
Elementary school Ivan Goran Kovacic announced the event.
Multimedia platform of the project:
PowerPoint Presentations created by gifted students of the Elementary School Ivan Goran Kovačić:
Students’ final video:
Publication with scientific and artistic/multimedial works in Croatian:
MV
Co-authors Ph.D Emina Berbic Kolar and Ph.D Vesna Srnic have published scientific paper Glocal, Holistic and Performative Education which Dr Srnic virtually presented at the Oxford conference New Approaches in Education on 27 March 2020.
We look at innovative education through a global and local approach to the philosophy of existence, known as glocalization, and 
through the psychological Gestalt of experiencing a whole that is inevitably viewed within social science by a sociological holistic principle. Our glocal, holistic, aesthetic practice has been experienced and realized through intensive performative education that enhances the existential capacity in multi / media projects through the humanistic approach, affectively using digital framing.
Full paper:
MV
On 27th March 2020 at the 2nd international icnaeducation online conference “New Approaches in Education” in Oxford, Ph.D. Vesna Srnić presented the scientific paper “Glocal, Holistic and Performative Education” co-authored with Assoc.Prof. PhD. Emina Berbić Kolar, Vice-Dean of the Faculty of Education in Osijek. In the paper we have presented performative arts in education as a long-standing practice of the Faculty, which promotes and encourages curricular reform in the Republic of Croatia.
“We look at innovative education through a global and local approach to the philosophy of existence, known as glocalization, and through the psychological Gestalt of experiencing a whole that is inevitably viewed within social science by a sociological holistic principle. Our glocal, holistic, aesthetic practice has been experienced and realized through intensive performative education that enhances the existential capacity in multi / media projects through the humanistic approach, affectively using digital framing.”
MV.
The Art Pavilion in Zagreb is starting its exhibition season with the show Zagreb, City of female Artists. The exhibition is being specially put on to mark the Croatian Presidency of the Council of the European Union, and also in honor of Zagreb, capital of the Republic of Croatia, from which the Government of the Republic of Croatia will preside over the Council of the European Union.
The basic idea of the exhibition is to provide a historical and critical cross-section from the oeuvres of those women visual artists who worked and left a record of themselves in the cultural life of the city of Zagreb in a period stretching from the end of the 19th century to the present age.
Within this relatively wide span of time, the generations of women artists are presented in three large, historically logical units The first covers the generations that were at work up to World War II; the second, those generations who started their exhibition activity after World War II and produced the major part of their work in the following decades; the third unit comprises the generations who appeared on the scene in the early seventies and later, and are, most of them, still at work.
The exhibition covers a hundred works: the paintings, sculptures, video performances, audio and video installations of the most significant women artists from the end of the 19th century, starting with Anka Bestall, Slava Raškaj, Lina Crnčić Virant, Nasta Rojc, Mila Wod, Sonja Kovačić-Tajčević, Anka Krizmanić, Vera Nikolić Podrinska and Zdenka Ostović Pexidr Srića; it goes on with Nevenka Đorđević, Ksenija Kantoci, Marta Ehrlich, Mila Kumbatović, Melita Bošnjak, Miranda Morić, Milena Lah, Vera Josipović, Vesna Sokolić, Borka Avramova, Vera Fischer, Vera Dajht Kralj, Tonka Petrić, Biserka Baretić, Marija Ujević, Ljerka Šibenik, Goranka Vrus Murtić, Nives Kavurić Kurtović, Zdenka Pozaić, Edita Schubert, Marijana Muljević, Sanja Iveković, Jadranka Fatur, Nevenka Arbanas, Vesna Popržan, Breda Beban, Nina Ivančić, Zvjezdana Fio and Dubravka Rakoci, continuing with Vlasta Delimar, Vesna Pokas, Kata Mijatović, Amela Frankl, Ksenija Turčić, Mirjana Vodopija, Vlasta Žanić, Kristina Leko, Božena Končić Badurina, Magdalena Pederin, Nika Radić, Ivana Franke, Martina Mezak, Ana Hušman and Andreja Kulunčić with the women’s collective ISTE (EQUALS ).
MV
On Saturday, 19th October 2019, The Croatian National Theatre (HNK) in Zagreb, Croatia inovativelly presented premiere of famous philosopher Slavoj Žižek’s Antigona, directed by the German/Croatian theatre director and activist Angela Richter, thus positioning itself at the top of European theatres.
In the first 20 minutes the play is frontal multimedia and then it becomes a total work of art, introducing the surprising performance art of the choir characters from the audience: randomly judging from the left, right and back balcony, as well as from the audience parterre. Choir characters were accompanied by a spotlight and a video camera with simultaneous projection.
The auditive, musical part of the play was impressively fitting into visual multimedia.
Firstly Žižek adhered to the classic content of the tragedy, but then technically and humorously by „flashback“ restrospection he examines three possible, elaborated solutions: in addition to the classic ending, Žižek recognizes a rigid or fundamentalist actuality, and finally he directly questions political thinking and leader’s responsibility. Appearing personally as a huge projection, Zizek harnessed the holistic and existentialist potential, like the great creator of proposed trinity (thesis-antithesis-synthesis).
Which of the three versions is the correct one?! The prophet Tiresias concludes that only in solitude by stopping the buzz of the world, we stop the chaos.
Still, the impression of over-controlling the play remains, it lacks the kind of „camp“ freedom, performative anarchy, although there were rhythmically impressive experimental audio-visual breaks in the play directed by Angela Richter! In my oppinion this could be achieved with a deeper and greater momentum towards the real audience, not filmed before the play, including all audio-visual risks.
Ph.D Vesna Srnic
MV
Civil organization “Culture, Media and Education” – ARTHEA performing event “Hologram and the Real: Forest Television” was realized on 25 May, 2019 at the main town square of the Croatian city Slavonski Brod with the alluring enthusiasm of all of us: the Zagreb dancers of contemporary dance Nastasja Štefanić and Tamara Curić, musician from Opatija Vedran Ružić on double bass, Tomislav Brezicevic from Zagreb on hang drum, and 98 students of “Faculty of Education” in Osijek, department in Slavonski Brod who have created multimedia works for the “Media Culture” course. The author of the project Ph.D.Vesna Srnić, Arthea president is a lecturer as well, while the vice dean Ph.D. Emine Berbić-Kolar gave us a great overall support. Technical supervision for the hologram was done by Connect IT, thanks to Avishai Cohen his song“Remembering” was a background music, and sponsors were the “Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia”, the “City of Slavonski Brod” and the “Connect IT Association”.
The project “Hologram and the Real: Forest Television” is questioning the Social Intelligence through the interrelationship of virtual and real.
The project also includes several scientists: Professor Ph.D. Lino Veljak, Head of the Department of Ontology, Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, Professor Dr Divna Vuksanović, Faculty of Drama Arts in Belgrade, President of the Association of Citizens’ Young Pea, Docent Ph.D. Suzana Marjanić, Institute of Ethnology and Folklore Research in Zagreb, PhD. Vesna Srnić, Research Fellow at the Faculty of Education in Osijek, department in Slav. Brod, Dr Kruno Martinac, Intercultural Communication, Melbourne, Australia and MA. Jugoslav Gojković, specialist of the psychiatric hospital ‘Josip Benčević’ in Slavonski Brod.
Credits :
Title : ‘ Remembering ‘
Music composed and performed by Avishai Cohen. Gad Music / Sony ATV
From the album: ‘ At Home’ 2005 – Avishai Cohen Trio and Ensemble – Razdaz Recordz LLC
by kind permission : Avishai Cohen, Razdaz Recordz LLC
Baroque in Glocal Postmodern Approach is a project and a Learning Scenario made for “The European Schoolnet Academy” in Brussels, Belgium, specifically for the Europeana in your classroom: building 21st-century competences with digital cultural heritage course, through 5 Modules of MOOC (Massive Open Online Course).
PhD. Vesna Srnic, Research fellow/Media-Via editor/NGO ARTHEA’s president
On Sunday evening (13th January, 2019) the moderator Srecko Horvat introduced at the Philosophical theater of the HNK (Croatian National Theater) in Zagreb, a famous Slovenian philosopher Dr Alenka Zupancic. Dr. Zupancic is close associate of worldly known Dr Slavoj Zizek and a writer of interesting book – What is Sex? published by the MIT Press.
One of the main ideas of the book What is Sex? is that sexuality is a short circuit between ontology and epistemology (being and knowledge).
Other important ideas:
Due to the timing problems, the president of the NGO Arthea association dr. Srnic did not ask this question, but she kindly puts it now:
You discussed about „animal“ and „human“ in your book … But can you explain or define the position of sexuality between a man/woman and a Hologram? Recently, a marriage between a young man and a Hologram occurred in Japan … So, what about the enjoyment or jouissance here?
You mentioned dreaming and „piloting the Animal“, but can we pilot the Hologram which is the most of virtual reality we can produce so far?! Is this relation „Real“ or just a „Dream“?! You said: “(…) every drive is virtually a death drive”, so is this correlation between Real and Virtual actually a correlation between Life and Death or a sort of anthropological „Television of the Forest“ (Narby)…
PHD. ALENKA ZUPANCIC ANSWERED TO THE MEDIA-VIA.NET PORTAL:
Thank you very much for your questions. They are related, they both involve the hologram as the other in a relationship. So I will take them together. The issue is big, and involves many different facets which I cannot possible deal with here, so let me just propose a few thoughts.
There is something about this story of “man marries a hologram” that is very old. We can take an example that is exactly 100 years old: Ernest’s Lubitsch’s film Die Puppe (The Doll) tells a story of a man who has to marry because otherwise he would lose his inheritance, but doesn’t want all the relationship-things that marriage implies. So he orders a mechanical doll which is a perfect replica of the doll-maker’s daughter. Things get complicated because the doll breaks down and the real daughter steps in pretending to be a doll… But anyway, the basic idea is something like this: by replacing a real partner with an artificial one we can get a perfect partner, attending to all our needs, but without the fuss that comes with a real relationship. The idea is not new, but became particularly present with rapid technological development and new possibilities it seems to offer. But according to Lacan this is precisely how most of the ordinary relationships function, particularly so far as men are concerned, and on an even more fundamental level. It’s not simply the question of eliminating the fuss, but more fundamentally the question of relating: do we really relate to the other as other when we are in a relationship, or is the other rather the screen or object via which we relate to ourselves, and that we need to be able to enjoy? Or, to use even more vivid language proposed by Slavoj Žižek: if masturbation is defined as “having sex with an imaginary partner”, then perhaps sexual intercourse could be defined in many cases as “masturbating with a real partner”. Or, as Woody Allen put it in anther turn of this same screw: “Masturbating is having sex with somebody you really love”. In other words, perhaps we don’t realize to what extent we already are functioning in relationships as holograms of our partners. Imperfect ones, and here technology can indeed step in and eliminate us altogether. Of course things change when this actually happens, and we can effectively, empirically eliminate the other as Other. But still, the structure at the bottom of this particular example is an old and absolutely pre-technological story of human sexuality and relationships. Then there is also the question – which many SF stories play with – of what happens if this technological gadgets actually do become our Other, in an most emphatic sense: if they gain autonomy (from our mastery), if they impose a rule of their own, if they enslave us to whatever “new order” they represent…
PhD. Vesna Srnic, Research Fellow (text, photographs, video)
MV
The Art Pavilion in Zagreb presents Croatian painter Vlaho Bukovac who was its founder 120 years ago, in a context in which his work has never before been exhibited. In this show, along with Bukovac’s works, those of his Parisian professor, Alexandre Cabanel, are also shown. Bukovac knew the spirit of academism and, on the other hand, he felt the spirit of Impressionistic freedom. Having accepted modern principles, Bukovac painted casual pictures, using liberated strokes of the brush, in the pointillist technique.
The exhibition can be seen till January 6, 2019.
Bukovac began his career in France. He painted in a “poetic” realistic style, his fashionable paintings achieved great success at the Paris Salon. During his sojourn in France, he traveled to England and the Dalmatian coast, where he was born. His travels also included voyages to the Black Sea, South (Chile and Peru), and North America.
Vlaho’s painting “Une fleur” was sold at Bonhams in London on 14 June 2006 for £100,800.00, including the auction premium. The auction house identified the painting as Reclining Nude.
MV
Sources:
In the latest program of the “Philosophical Theater” in the Croatian National Theater HNK on 17 June, 2018, Srecko Horvat presented the famous German artist and scientist PhD. Hito Steyerl. The New York Times claimed “Hito Steyerl Is an Artist With Power. She Uses It for Change.”(Postmodernism as fragmentation is full of banality and conversation about it, taken out of context, can be perceived as such, so it was not allowed to record video during the talk!)
Hito Steyerl (born 1966 in Munich) is a German filmmaker, visual artist, writer, and innovator of the essay documentary. Her principal topics of interest are media, technology, and the global circulation of images. Steyerl holds a PhD in Philosophy from the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna. She is currently a professor of New Media Art at the Berlin University of the Arts, where she co-founded the Research Center for Proxy Politics, together with Vera Tollmann and Boaz Levin (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hito_Steyerl )
Steyerl’s famous for her essays and one of it is: “In Defense of the Poor Image” (https://www.e-flux.com/journal/10/61362/in-defense-of-the-poor-image )
She prefers low resolution images, almost abstract… These days: Images are looking people! (We can see the connection to W.J.T. Mitchell’s notion from the book „What do pictures want?“ and the theory of J. Baudrillard.)
„The poor image is no longer about the real thing—the originary original. Instead, it is about its own real conditions of existence: about swarm circulation, digital dispersion, fractured and flexible temporalities. It is about defiance and appropriation just as it is about conformism and exploitation.
In short: it is about reality.“ 
In her new essay she discusses „Art of arts“ – a dystopian idea. It seems as an extension of her book „Duty Free Art“ (Art in the Age of Planetary Civil War) where she points to new storages of art as new substitutes for museums. (https://www.e-flux.com/journal/63/60894/duty-free-art )
She writes: „Huge art storage spaces are being created worldwide in what could essentially be called a luxury no man’s land, tax havens where artworks are shuffled around from one storage room to another once they get traded. This is also one of the prime spaces for contemporary art: an offshore or extraterritorial museum. (…) Freeport art storage facilities are secret museums. (…)The idea of duty-free art has one major advantage over the nation-state cultural model: duty-free art ought to have no duty—no duty to perform, to represent, to teach, to embody value.”
While discussing the technology and some predicting programs in sports, Steyerl as a media and technology artist claimed Artificial Intelligence has a shadow! She named it – Artificial Stupidity! But she uses technology – in terms of innovative and eduactional tools.
The question from the audience: as well as Karl Marx, Steyerl gives an overview and why not solutions?! She answered: we are not „omnipotent“ individuals but collectively creative through education and collective play (University has to be close to the Universe!).
The pleasant atmosphere of this philosophical talk has been completed as humorously as Srećko’s “Pink Freud” on his t-shirt!
MV
Stephan Lupino is a Croatian photographer, master of erotic photography and a versatile artist of a peculiar style with a successful foreign career and one of the most famous photographers in the world. The magazine”Paper” included Lupino on a list of ten people who marked the New York night scene in the eighties and nineties.
Lupino’s photos have been released by leading fashion and art world magazines such as Vogue, Zoom, King, Max, Photo, Playboy, Europeo and many others, and in front of his camera, he has attracted thousands of thriving beauties and many famous musicians. His sculptures are exhibited all over the world and are among the top works of world modern art. In addition to photography and sculpture, he is also engaged in painting, directing commercial and music videos, and art films. He has released several books of his photographs.
The magazine”Paper” included Lupino on a list of ten people who marked the New York night scene in the eighties and nineties.
Sources:
MV (iphone photos with Gallery permission)
This year’s performance project is an elaborated continuation of last years multicultural themes called Glocal Multimedia Culture: “The World Image and Performativeness of Glocal Consciousness”, with an emphasis on educational and scientific / artistic urban affect, mitigation of xenophobia as foreign / different from traditional, via interdisciplinary and integrated education of students and citizens through innovative art practice.
More at: http://glocal-art.ning.com and SBTV News (in Croatian).
https://www.facebook.com/groups/glocalart
http://www.culturenet.hr/default.aspx?id=82321
The project, titled Situationally Performative Smartphone Orchestra, examines the relationship “Humans vs. Tehne “, and continues on lectures and seminars of the course Media Culture lectured by the author Dr. sc. Vesne Srnic (an example of a small sample of 50 students in the lecture hall is available on https://media-via.net/…/post-modern-dystopic-deconstruction …).
On Saturday, 5 May 2018, exactly at 12 o’clock on the main city square “Ivana Brlić Mažuranić” in Slavonski Brod we orchestrated a set of 200+ smartphones in phenomenologically designed, situationally astonished (humming) sounds and (white) noises. Eighty students of the “Faculty of Teacher Education in Osijek”, a department in Slavonski Brod, 2 teachers and the video group of the elementary school “Ivan Goran Kovačić”, as well as the present 200 people on the square – turned on the sounds and alarms of their smartphones! The students/performers presented the meditative, asymmetrical and atonal shift of the usual harmonic sounds in the postmodern spirit, and the students/moderators gave the viewers the performative tasks of activating the alarm or their favourite ringtone of the smartphone at the exact time (12.15 minute). Multimedial photographs and video footages were recorded by 60 students as an intense event for their final work in the above-mentioned Media Culture course, and elementary school students added lower and upper shots recorded with mBot robots and drones. We invited national televisions, the local SBTV, as well as numerous Internet portals and radio stations. The length of the performance was 20 minutes, after which the affectivelly refined usual perception returned to the main square.
Project sponsors are the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Slavonski Brod, the Tourist Board of the City of Slavonski Brod, and this year’s collaborator in celebrating the European Week was the Europe House Slavonski Brod.
PUBLICATION 2018 PUBLIKACIJA_ARTHEA_2018
The portal Media-Via editor and NGO Culture, Media and Education president Ph.D Vesna Srnic has just published the scientific paper Glocal Multimedia Art as an Unbreakable Narrative at the American Journal of Arts&Humanities. https://www.theartsjournal.org/index.php/site/index
Faculty of Teacher Education in Osijek, Department in Slavonski Brod
2nd year students
Associate Professor PhD. Emina Berbić-Kolar
Mentor and concept leader: PhD. Vesna Srnic, Research Fellow
Artistic individuation as a performative ‘gender indeterminacy’
Creating this year’s state of mind on the Croatian City Square, promoting human rights to diversity, our civic organization “Culture, Media and Education” – ARTHEA presented a new dance performance: two students of contemporary dance from the Academy of Drama Arts in Zagreb – Simun Stankov and Mate Jonjic, as well as a student from the Faculty of Educational Sciences in Osijek, department in Slavonski Brod Igor Ilic, in long skirts and choreography of Zagreb dancer and musician Nastasja Stefanic performed an improvisation on jazz music by the American artist John Zorn, gaining an inspiration from the world famous Israeli Dance group Kibbutz Contemporary Dance Company, with whom the author of the project PhD. Vesna Srnic has arranged co-operation. (culturenet.hr ; http://glocal-art.ning.com/https://www.facebook.com/groups/glocalart ; ) Brochure in Croatian language –PUBLIKACIJA_2017
Part of the art performance is also a multimedia platform realized by the students of the Academy of Arts in Osijek, under the mentorship of prof.art. Vladimir Frelih, as well as a student of the Faculty of Educational Sciences in Osijek, department in Slavonski Brod Valentina Jackiv and Rian Skrinjaric, the student of Primary School “Ivan Goran Kovacic”, educated by the teacher Tomislav Lacic.
As the author of the project stated in her thesis of doctoral dissertation that the artistic individuation is the way of solving the gender problematic and that only with the aesthetic changes of reality we re-create and acquire a new personality without gender discrimination or categorization, neither androgynous nor transgender. Of course, we do not eliminate the potentials of individuals and communities that explore all the transitional boundaries of their gender.
Short video of the performance:
The particular importance of the project is seen in the global decentralization of culture and the penetration of a progressive performative approach to urban space in which the overwhelming conservatism of culture and rigid xenophobia prevail, ie the frustration by the contemporary art practices as a different worldview of abstract imagination and, above all, the presence of strangers. We incorporate this civic educational project in primary, secondary and tertiary curricula.
Scientific reviews on artistic performances will be written by: Professor PhD. Lino Veljak (Head of the Department of Ontology, Faculty of Philosophy in Zagreb), Mediologist Professor dr Divna Vuksanovic (Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade, President of the Association of Citizens for Art, Culture, Media and Social Issues “Young Peas”), dr Jugoslav Gojkovic (Department of Psychiatry, Slavonski Brod), and the media aesthetician PhD. Vesna Srnic, associate professor at the Faculty of Educational Sciences in Osijek, a department in Slavonski Brod.
Video of the whole performance:
This year civic organization “Culture, Media and Education” – ARTHEA was financially supported by the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, the City of Slavonski Brod, the Tourist Board of Slavonski Brod and Brodsko-Posavska County.
Croatian culture web centre – Culturenet.hr, informed on the performance (in Croatian language):
Local television SBTV information at 18:48 – 22:40 (in Croatian):
Brochure in Croatian language PUBLIKACIJA_2017
MV
This season’s Philosophical Theater started with the famous British Pakistani activist, writer, theorist, journalist and filmmaker Tariq Ali. The leader Srecko Horvat, known in Europe for his leftist activism, moderated the interview on 30th October, 2016 in The Croatian National Theater (HNK) in Zagreb. Horvat’s schedule for upcoming months is as follows:
27th November – sociologists Zygmunt Bauman and Alexandra Kania
4th December – Yanis Varoufakis
27th January 2017 – Bobby Gillespie and Franco B. Bifo (blending philosophy and rock and roll)
After the short performance of the drama with his text “The New Adventures of Don Quixote”, during this very pleasant evening Tariq Ali introduced himself as a rigorous and sensitive theorist and playwright at the same time. While criticizing pessimisti
cally the American and European capitalist society, he stressed the importance of the real democracy (not the fake ones where it’s necessary “to pinch the nose”) and objective reasoning of those who appreciate the positive approach to society and culture.
Tariq Ali is a Brit
ish Pakistani writer, journalist, and filmmaker. He is a member of the editorial committee of the New Left Review and Sin Permiso (es), and contributes to The Guardian, CounterPunch, and the London Review of Books. He read PPE in University of Oxford.
MV
Sources: wikipedia
On Saturday, June 11, 2016 at 12 am at the town square “Ivana Brlić Mažuranić” in Slavonski Brod, civil organization “Culture, Media and Education” – ARTHEA orchestrated multimedia performative trine “World image and performativity of glocal consciousness”, culturally aimed against xenophobia as destructor of conservative ego. Our project is a multiplatform awareness raising programme with a heavy emphasis on performance art in urban surroundings.
The glocal (global and local) artists in simultaneous performances were: Slovenian Aljaz Razdevsek on saxophone (a graduate of the Music Academy in Zagreb and Conservatoire a rayonnment regional de Lyon), 
Frenchman Regis Kattie on keyboards (a graduate of the Music Academy in Zagreb), and three graduates, contemporary dancers from the Academy of Dramatic Arts in Zagreb – Nastja Stefanic, Eleonora Magdalena Vrdoljak and Cynthia Kucic. Online reviews of multimedia visions on performances can be seen at the social network http://glocal-art.ning.com by the following scientists: Prof. Ph.D. Lino Veljak from the Department of ontology of the Faculty of 
Philosophy in Zagreb, then Dr. Kruno Martinac from the Murdoch University, Australia, as well as Prof. PhD. Divna Vuksanovic from the Faculty of Dramatic Arts, Belgrade and MA Jugoslav Gojkovic, dr. Med. at the Department of Psychiatry, Slavonski Brod.
The author of performative artistic-scientific project is Ph.D. Vesna Srnic, research associate at the Faculty of Educational Sciences in Osijek, study in Slavonski Brod.
More about the project at the online platform http://glocal-art.ning.com/
Video by Valentina Jackiv, student of the Faculty of Educational Sciences in Osijek, study in Slavonski Brod
Our project is a multiplatform awareness raising programme with a heavy emphasis on performance art in urban surroundings.
Through this project we hope to:
With the imminent entrance of Croatia in to the EU the need for a project that raises awareness of European values is greater than ever.The project puts a heavy emphasis on bringing european values to its’ future citizens on a more intimate and local level. More often than not it’s the localities that are neglected since most programmes deem it only necessary to target major cities.
The project will immidiately pull in by-standers and will peak their curiosity which will lead them to ask questions about the performances and in turn will be informed about the project and it’s theme. By catching just a glimpse of another culture they can draw their own conclusions as to the differences and similiarities they may share with other nations. It will promote open mindedness and a will to accept foreigners in to their society. Web logs, social networking and traditional forms of media will ensure that the program will not go unnoticed. With the all the performers, intelectuals, experts and the general public involved the project has huge potential to reach a massive audience.
A performance as dance is universal. Every culture has one. This project takes advantage of this and uses the fact to „hook“ by standers. From then they ask themselves the questions needed to come to the realisation that multiculturality and understanding is indeed the road that needs to be taken. This unique combination of performances in urban surroundings combined with online conferences, discussions and multimedia campaign (brochures, social networking) will ensure that the project will reach it’s full potential.
The members of ARTHEA are scientists, professors, artists, students and agile creative citizens. The association is registered as a competente civil organisation for the Cultural areas of Art, Media and Internet, thus it promotes Media culture and raises awareness on the Multicultural integration.
MV
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