Perverted Utopia

The term “Utopia” has been a subject of manipulation by political structures in the Balkans since the last 30 years. It is a term that has been used as a promise for decades, and it somehow still triggers hope in people’s minds. The project title Perverted Utopia contradicts itself and alludes to the disturbed reality of the present moment, while waiting for the utopia to come.

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The topics I want to address are: How much the political past intertwines with current political topics, and more importantly, how the political past we haven’t faced yet directly affects and shapes the current political context.

By putting political works in an environment that is usually described as “perverted” (the basement of a sex shop) I want the audience to realize that such a space) is not perverted, but a political reality. The installation includes two formats: visual and audio. The visuals include a constellation of ten screenprints on latex in space. This visual “story” is not told through the technique of traditional story telling. It doesn’t have a plot, or a time line, but it’s rather a set of different “perversions” that together with their sub-contextual meaning create the narrative. The audio element features recordings of different political speeches of the last 30 years. The voices are blurry and distorted much like the conscious memory of them. Those are the voices of Balkan’s political past. Their meaning is multilayered because it’s not just that they are following me but they’re pushing me out of my country. What’s also adding to the contradiction of these voices is that no matter how much they’re pushing me out they’re omnipresent in my life, never letting me go.

The installation could be perceived as “regional”, because it speaks about the Balkan’s political sphere but another layer would be how an audience in Vienna is perceiving the works and how the visitors could be provoked to think about facing the political past of their own countries.

Time

Summer Semester 20/21

Team

Dimitrije Andrijević