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Mechanical Dream is a multimedia installation commissioned for "Premio Cairo #12", the award exhibition which takes place
every year at the Museo della Permanente in Milan. The work has been inspired by the news that the Crvena Zastava factory
which used to make Yugo cars in the former Yugoslavia had been sold to Italian automobile magnate Fiat. It deals with culture
and social phenomenon which this event had triggered.
This installation explores by means of photography, video and painting different aspects of the collective identity as defined
by political and market dynamics that aim to construct an imaginarium, which is at the same time "borrowed" and "adapted"
for local use. Zastava cars contributed both in a historic and a symbolic way to creation of the "authentic" national identity to
Yugoslav nations on a large scale. Those cars also represented, in accordance to ambitions and paradoxes of the system that
produced them, something of a "mechanical dream", which was synonymous to the progressive West of the 20th century and of
its consumer-driven society. The break apart of Yugoslavia in 1990's was followed by general collapse of its economy (that included
the Crvena Zastava factory) and the image of socialist society changed dramatically. Its "authentic" values disappeared
and its former identity was deconstructed entirely. The new fate of the factory and its social reality thus bring a “solution” for
that crisis; a solution whose consequences remain unknown when viewed through lens of economic and cultural colonialism.
With this prospective, the series of five photographs reconstruct and interpret old commercials of different models of Zastava
cars, which are emblematic for the marketing strategies of the period as well as the values of the then system. They are naïve
and enthusiastic about the consumerist reality imitating the "western" models with all their seduction mechanisms and fabrication
of desires. Instead of the original commercials based on standard formula: car+woman, pseudo-commercials are created
where I as an author become a (fashion) model, while the background is contextualized by architecture and present everyday
setting of Zastava cars.
The video, which is presented on TV screen, introduces the viewer directly into the local reality of Crvena Zastava. Following
the visit to the factory and its location, the video displays the current factory architecture and cityscape by using relay of static
shots and moving camera. The narration of the video consists of the parts from interviews I made with former and current employees.
Intimate expectations, fears and the mood of the locals towards the moment of transformation have been "neutralized"
and "concealed" by my monotonous reading of their statements. Video is intermitted by 30-second inserts from old Zastava TV
commercials found on Youtube.
Installation also includes a painting of panoramic dimensions. It is based on photographs of the damaged factory following the
1999 bombing, which I found on internet. The painting is reminiscent of the historic-fantasy genre from the Western European
painting tradition, and contains a patchwork made of press clips which document some of the recent economic and political moments.
It represents an independent allegoric vision and dioramic background for the video.
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Mechanical Dream
2011, installation
series of 5 photographs
(lambda print, variable dimensions),
video screened on TV (HDV 16:9, colour-sound)
and painting (acrylic and newspaper collage on canvas, 202x138 cm)
Coming soon ...
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