BIX Media façade


Pixel Tattoos is the new project for the BIX façade. It will transform Kunsthaus Graz at different times during the next year into a rhythmically pulsating tapestry of perceptual phenomena, piercing the urban space. Pixel Tattoos displays the interaction between the biomorphic architecture of the Kunsthaus and digital animations by four Slovenian media artists - Marko Batista, Igor Štromajer, Neven Korda and Luka Prinčič invited to the project by Kunsthaus Graz and the intermedia artist Janez Janša (Aksioma) - who have been asked to face the unusual technical parameters offered by this peculiar medium.
The "minimalistic" and "limited" structure of the Kunsthaus façade creates a challenging surface for artistic expression, imparting an unconventional visual-spatial experience: a ghostly screen of dynamic light and reflection, an outer membrane where a particular "process of writing" and "exploration of the surface tension qualities" transpires.
The result is a dialogue between the two elements, a "conversation" happening neither inside the building nor outside but exactly on its skin.

Friday, May 29, 8 pm
BIX Media façade/ Opening at the Medienkunstlabor


: Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art, 2009, Kunsthaus Graz


Projekt Series


Marko Batista
Marko Batista's new video work presented in Pixel Tattoos is part of the series entitled "Displaced Objects and Hybrid Structures" in which the author focuses on the idea of tactical transportation and cybernetic mobility through specific modular events. Using contemporary architectural environments Batista introduces visual intervention as part of the hybrid structure based on so-called ‘meta' relations and objects as being simultaneously real, social, and discursive formations. Artist, media theorist, and researcher Trebor Scholz explains that "Distributed real-time interaction strategies and negotiations for data sharing and processing are examples of dynamic systems with a high degree of complexity, just as culture itself can be viewed as a highly complex system."
Marko Batista is Ljubljana-London based mixed-media artist. Together with Miha Horvat (son:DA) he founded the multimedia group KLON:ART:RESISTANCE. Several projects researching the field of digital image transformation processes, networking data, displaced sound-scapes and hybrid structures have been presented at festivals, galleries and different urban places. More: www.project-data.info


Igor Štromajer
The Condition of the Working Class in England
(Die Lage der arbeitenden Klasse in England)
Working Men! To you I dedicate a work, a faithful picture of your condition, of your sufferings and struggles, of your hopes and prospects. I wanted to see you in your own homes, to observe you in your everyday life, to chat with you on your condition and grievances, to witness your struggles against the social and political power of your oppressors. Having, at the same time, ample opportunity to watch the middle-classes, your opponents, I soon came to the conclusion that you are perfectly right in expecting no support whatsoever from them. Their interests are diametrically opposed to yours. Their doings give them the lie. Have they ever paid any serious attention to your grievances? Indeed not, those are things they do not like to speak of - they have left it to a foreigner to inform the civilised world of the degrading situation you have to live in. Go on then, as you have done hitherto. Much remains to be undergone; be firm, be undaunted - your success is certain, and no step you will have to take in your onward march will be lost to our common cause, the cause of Humanity!
Igor Štromajer is a multimedia artist and intimate mobile communicator. He researches tactical emotional states and intimate traumatic low-tech guerrilla strategies. He has exhibited his work at more than a hundred exhibitions in fifty countries and has received a number of awards. As guest-artist he lectures at universities and contemporary art institutes worldwide. His works are included in the permanent collections of numerous prestigious contemporary art institutions, museums and galleries. More: www.intima.org


Neven Korda
The Same New Story
Disorderly, perfect, difficult, speedy, hazy, stupid, banal.
The same new story. Do you love me? Can I trust you? We are talking about a modern attitude, modern immortality, modern future, modern fear, modern man, modern ...
O. K. The Greeks were important. The Egyptians also. And the Babylonians, too. But why are they so important? The Romans built the roads and they were also important ¬- but why is that so? Cool, religious people, especially Jews, Christians and Muslims were important - but why? Hinduism, Buddhism were interesting and not so important - but why? The Nazis were dangerous but important, communists were not so important - but why dangerous?
"The Same New Story" project consists of 176 words lying in a psd file - a job from 2003. This 3280 x 2460 pixels picture moves across a 960 x 370 screen hole (the BIX façade). In addition to it, there is a 720 x 576 pixels moving stream picture found in Genet's film.
Neven Korda is an artist working in the field of performance and projected arts. He researches, practices, records and worships pure art. He has a 100 % pure video practice and his visualizer is Barbato Kanak. He creates artificial situations with the need for live interaction of body, voice, sound and video, put through computer manipulation.
He is also a director and author of theatre performances, auteur films, documentaries, videos. He is a mentor and presenter of video workshops. His activity also covers the area of archiving and conservation of video recordings.
More: www.korda-art.si


Luka Prinčič / Nova deViator
The basic questioning, almost a frustration behind this work is the struggle of how to ask questions (a contemporary art practice!) through a monster which is the facade of Graz's Kunsthaus. How is it, that a multimedia artist is faced with a challenge to ask something on a 56x25 resolution gray-scale display in times of HDTV (1920×1080 in millions of colours)? Sure, we love lo-fi and old-school pixel-art, we really do, but we need to focus on monstrosity ... How can an artist ask a question if a man is really an Oedipalized animal through a device which is interesting only because it has 930 neon lights that can flash as fast as 20 times per second in any intensity or because it is on a house dedicated to the presentation and promotion of contemporary artistic production? Super toy or something to behold?
More: http://viator.si


Brane Zorman is a composer and sound manipulator. Between 1982 and 1986 he was front man of the Slovene punk group O!KULT. He is a pioneer of the Slovene techno scene. Since 1987 he has been composing music for Slovene and international theatre, dance and multimedia performances and projects, and has made guest appearances throughout Europe. Recently he works with Irena Pivka on a series of audio-visual installations ZONE.
More: www.cona.si


Aksioma - Institute for Contemporary Art is a non-profit cultural institution based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, which is interested in projects that take advantage of new technologies in order to investigate and discuss the structures of (post)modern society. Aksioma concentrates on artistic production that explores social, political, aesthetic, and ethical concerns.
More: www.aksioma.org


Kunsthaus Graz

Lendkai 1
8020 Graz, Österreich
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10th June

24th/25th December

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