FROM HERE THEY CAN HIT YOU IN THE EYE
The installation of photographs, (4 colour, 18 black and white), taken
in December 1994 on the demarcation line between Croats and Muslims,
entitled Odavde te moze u oko,
opens a timely subject of the look, the seer, the eyewitness and
vision. Stokelj admits that during his visit of ruins and fronts, holed
by lethal bullets, he himself was being photographed in that milieu,
through holes and saints.
The (eye)witness and voyeur was therefore not only noticed, but was
also photographed, pictures of him were being taken. Here we have
objects which are not some silent, totally passive scenery of other's
stage, but which with an incredible force fix their (inhuman, machine)
gaze upon the observer; the same topic Paul Vrilio was reflecting upon
in his text Machine that sees, in the field of contemporary theory. In
the beginning of the final section of the book La machine de vision
(Paris, 1988), the title of which is Machine that sees, he mentions the
thought of the painter Paul Klee,
"And now the objects preceive me", which he uses as the starting-poin
for reflections about a machine that sees (perceptron) as a device for
automatic vision without looks (looking). Yet Stokelj goes even further
in his statement, for he reveals he was not only seen, that is
preceived bye the object, but also photogaphed, captured, brought to a
standstill in a moment. To be a photographed photographer is no
coincidence in a milieu of countless openings, stains, holes, of a
total preformation, that is in the milieu of war as it is today.
Moreover (and especially) in the one generating the war in Bosnia,
distinctively a media war, which means surveillance, manipulation, and
deceving lie at its core. It is not possible anymore that the observer
could not be observed, captured in the field of vision, fixed as the
target of various measuring devices on a clearance and simultaneously
included in the panopticon of universal translucency, indiscriminate
picture talking and manipulation with an artificial (machine like) and
natural look. He reached a position where he does not photograph (only)
objects, but precariously follows those (hidden, secret, virtual)
simulacra that photograph him. Therefore he is persistently searching
for openings, niches, stains, holes, all of which is seen on his
photographs... on Strokelj's photographs included in the exhibition Odavde te moze u oko.
The attacked look, the look to which anwsers a stronger, virtual look,
the seer seen through eyes of the virtual eyewitness, the photographed
photographer, the look of machine which manipulates with the seen, are
amongst things defining this exhibition. Stokelj's photographs, which
the author of these lines does not like, are in the fact
post-aesthetic, the light on them is also disagreeable, therefore they
are photographs of perforation, shooting through and surfaces of the
little wounds and stains. We are dealing with photographs that reached
a digital level; it looks as if physics and chemistry of photographic
paper have already been replaced by the digital medium of pixels.
Stokelj's photography is a net of points, for what we see is a
multitude of points, holes, little wounds, stains, scars, injuries
unraveling (the traditionally drafted, stable) matter. A photograph
which is a target itself, reached by the missiles, that like artistic
dust, say from weapons-kinetic objects of Survival Research Laboratories poured down on it.
The exebition Odavde te moze u oko is
conceived as an exhibition of multimedia installation. The setting of
photographs is accompanied by music (Croatian Unprofor Big Band), a
special place is occupied by a photograph in a baroque frame (10 x 15
cm) placed on a chest yet accesible to the viewer's eye through the
keyhole in the chest, which slows the same picture, only illuminated
and enhanced (to size 160 x 100). As we are dealing with the eye,
looking, seeing and the present day problems of digital manipluation,
but also preforation, inter-activity and pointilism, this additional
element of the installation is so-to-speak obligatory,
especially as the curious viewer of this photograph will also be
noticed, recorded with a video camera. This recording will (likely) be
shown live on a big display in the center of Ljubljana (at Sestica).
The exhibition is thereby extending from space to time, live
installation in the video and info media (the opening and presentation
of the exhibition will probably take place as well on the info-highway
Internet) is productive and also provocative for the slovenian culture
scene, for it implicates the way out of the gallery seen as a shrine, a
prison, a clinic but mainly the place of the capital.
Janez Strehovec
How to contact Bojan Stokelj:
BOJAN STOKELJ
I. REGENTA 3,
65000 NOVA GORICA,
SLOVENIJA - Europe
TEL. +FAX: +386 65 22904