Aksioma Institute

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Aksioma, Zavod za sodobne umetnosti, Ljubljana
Jakopičeva ulica 11, SI-1000 Ljubljana
Phone386 (0) 41 250 830
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The Aksioma Institute is a production and organisation unit for various dealings with contemporary art. It runs its own gallery called Aksioma Project Space and presents internationally renowned performance and new media art projects, collaborates in producing new artworks, publishes books and texts on artists and art, sets up lectures, and represents Slovene artists abroad.

Based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, it was founded in 2002 and is run by the multimedia artist Davide Grassi, today known as Janez Janša.


Creed

Aksioma foremost engages in projects which utilise new technologies, reflecting on the structures of the (post)modern society, as (often) organised also by the technology itself. Focusing on artistic production that explores social and political concerns, it endorses practices which, for example, aim at hacking the role of mass media in contemporary society through various mediums, interpreting the narratives in subversive, critical, or ironic manner.

Though working primarily in the field the new media art, the institute is also active in performing and visual arts.

Projects

In light of more than a dozen (sometimes double so) productions, performances and exhibitions per year, it would be rather hard to thoroughly sum up the directions explored by Aksioma.

Nevertheless, a somewhat random list of its relatively recent projects can give a feel for the topics explored: Sonoseismic Earth (a responsive kinetic installation that presents Earth in the age of the Anthropocene), The World Without Us (a group exhibition exploring 'Narratives on the age of non-human actors'); Random Darknet Shopper (a robot/software entity that was randomly buying and ordering on the 'darknet'); Joey Skaggs in Ljubljana (a visit by the social activist, educator and prankster Joey Skaggs); All Work, No Play (an interactive exhibition of video games that make people critically engage with current socio-political issues; Eternal September (a group exhibition on the relationships between professional art making and the rising tide of amateur cultural movements throughout the Web); and History of the Future (a cinematic archive/multi-media presentation of international science-fiction production and representations of possible realities of the future and the present).

Artists

Known for its vigorous production and co-production realised in Slovenia and abroad Aksioma Institute tends to work with artists whose approach to new media is not just about technology but also about a particular content that suits Aksioma's greater mission. Of the Slovene artists, one can thus name the multimedia artist Sašo Sedlaček; the self-styled pseudo-artist and intimate mobile communicator Igor Štromajer (of the Intima Virtual Base); Neven Korda and his experimental video 'theatre'; Marko Batista, a tech-mixed-media artist, sound researcher, video experimentalist and AV performer; and the interdisciplinary artist Maja Smrekar, the recipient of the Golden Nica 2017.

Among the many artists with whom Aksioma has collaborated are Jennifer Lyn Morone (US), Pinar Yoldas (TU), Jacob Appelbaum (US), Jacob Appelbaum (US), !Mediengruppe Bitnik (CH/UK), Nicolas Maigret (FR), Molleindustria (IT), Golan Levin (US), Josef (Seppo) Gründler (AT), Julian Oliver and Danja Vasiliev (NZ), Michael Madsen (DN), etc.

Janez Janša namechange project

Aksioma has produced several projects by its director Janez Janša, formerly known as [Davide Grassi]. Very visible among them was the project (initiated in 2007) of renaming himself (alongside two other artists, Emil Hrvatin and Žiga Kariž), all three officially taking the name of the then prime minister.

Various projects have taken place in the framework of this namechange and the trio presented it also as the performance Signature Event Context on the Transmediale 2008 in Berlin. In the same year the exhibition curated by Zdenka Badovinac entitled NAME - Readymade was featured in the frame of the Steirischer Herbst Festival of New Art in Graz. Since than it was presented also in ArtLaboratoryBerlin, HONF laboratory Yogyakarta (Indonesia) and in LASALLE College of the Arts, Faculty of Media Arts in Singapore. In 2012 Aksioma Institute ran the first successful crowdfunding project in Slovenia, which enabled the postproduction of the My Name Is Janez Janša documentary film.

Publications

Aksioma frequently publishes texts on contemporary art in various formats, books, brochures and catalogues. The publications are as a rule available to read online as well as in print, and are usually available either in English or bilingual.

The titles include Mladen Dolar's What’s in a Name and Domenico Quaranta's Beyond New Media Art; texts on the work of artists like Marko Batista and Sašo Sedlaček; The Pirate Book (offering a broad view on media piracy as well as a variety of comparative perspectives on recent issues and historical facts regarding piracy); and many others.

Aksioma also released some albums, among them an album by the Bast collective Bast – Retinal Cirkus (2007) containing improvisations recorded at Klub Gromka, during the project Burn Out produced by Aksioma.

Collaborations and partners

The Aksioma Institute as a producer and co-producer collaborates with plenty of national and international institutions. In Slovenia, it's frequent partners are or have been Kino Šiška Centre for Urban Culture, the KiBela Art Space, the Museum of Modern Art, the Maska Institute, the Koroška Gallery of Fine Arts, the Kapelica Gallery, the Match Gallery, the P.A.R.A.S.I.T.E. Institute, Bunker Institute, the City of Women International Festival of Contemporary Arts, and Simulaker Gallery Novo Mesto.

International cooperation

In 2017 they won a Creative Europe grant, this time for a project called State Machines. Art, Work, and Identity in an Age of Planetary-Scale Computation, featuring Drugo more udruge (HR), Furtherfield.org (UK), NeMe (CY), Stichting Hogeschool van Amsterdam (NL).

Their previous projects under the auspices of Creative Europe have been the international cooperation projects Masters & Servers: Networked Culture in the Post-digital Age (2014–2016) and ARSCOPE: Art-Science Co-Operation Environement (2011–2013).

The institute has also worked with festivals and institutions abroad, among them the MNAC - National Museum of Contemporary Art in Bucharest, MMSU - Museum of Contemporary Art in Rijeka (RE:akt!), Institute FH JOANNEUM Graz (Brainloop), V:NM Festival in Graz, Kunsthaus Graz etc.

Awards and mentions

See also

External links



Projects



Gallery

... more about "Aksioma Institute"
Aksioma, Zavod za sodobne umetnosti, Ljubljana +
Aksioma, Zavod za sodobne umetnosti, Ljubljana +
SI-1000 Ljubljana +
Jakopičeva ulica 11 +
The Aksioma Institute is a production and organisation unit for various endeavours in the field of contemporary art. +
The Aksioma Institute is a production and organisation unit for various endeavours in the field of contemporary art. +
Aksioma je neprofitna kulturna organizacija, aktivna na področju novomedijske umetnosti in raziskovalnih umetniških praks. +
+386 / 41 250 830 +
Ljubljana +
SI-1000 +
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