Sanja Anđelković
– born in 1991, in Novi Sad, where she lives and works. She completed her undergraduate (2019) and master’s studies (2021) at the Department of New Media at the University of Novi Sad. Sanja’s audio-visual and textual artistic practice is based in the research process, with an emphasis on examining the line between the documentary and the speculative, with a focus on issues of gender, socio-political context, and places of personal trauma. She won the Dimitrije Bašićević Mangelos Award (YVAA, Belgrade, Serbia, 2023).
Portrait of the artist, 2022, photo: Lav Kovač, courtesy of the artist.
Finding the middle – the grounding and a medial voice between gender and nationality, human and non-human, living and non-living.
I come from a socialist, working-class family, where art was not considered a profession. Steered by that, I first studied the English language, and through visual extensions I surrounded myself with words and thoughts. Teaching English was my job, from which came the desire for meaningful, literary storytelling. Even when I studied art, I never felt like I knew what I was doing. I saw myself as someone who, because of the desire to research and share, is always at the service of others. Examining how things work fueled my curiosity for the exploration of the unknown, the uncomfortable but visceral.
There was never a strong desire to be or become anything. My only desire in life was to be present and immersed in current events. I didn’t think much about the future. I didn’t think much about the past. So I focused on temporality as an opportunity for opening a space for the simultaneous presence of the future and the past – in the moment.
When I think of the present, I think of a game where there is a delicate, tactile, detailed world of expression that is not dictated by the pace set by the world. It contains the present moment in which I am developing possibilities for research, with successful attempts, but also with mistakes. If development is measured by speed rather than the quality of experience, what intelligible space would anyone be interested in? Child’s play! In my works Tentactive, Find Your Mongrel and Once Upon a Grass123, I explore the ways in which material, as well as digital versions of games can be subversive. The aforementioned works explore action such as game as a strategy for propagating certain narratives and developing connections within hyperobjective realities: migrant crisis, suffocated environment, wild urban animals, etc.
My practice is mostly divided into periods where I explore different media. The content is similar, never the same, but along the lines of socially or ecologically activist practices.
I draw references from various current phenomena and work with archives from various state institutions to create multi-layered works45. In addition to often being developed with teams of artists, scientific researchers and experts from different fields, the works turn into an intimate inter-relational handbook for the past and the future – the moment in which humans and non-humans meet.
In the course of my research at the intersection of art and science, there came a clear shift towards the digital. The reason was not my potential fascination with technology, but contemplating on how to preserve the physical space I inhabit, as well as any other physical space. More precisely, how do I not create even more waste? Art has become suffocating and wasteful in my daily life. I’ve come to realise that there is something liberating about the lightness and convenience of submitting artwork. Of course, there was always the question of the materiality of the work, but for me it comes in different shapes and forms. I am of the opinion that materiality comes with words, and they can be materialised through a 2D TV screen or projection. From those findings, a new opus of works related to death, its consequences and possibilities emerged.
In my computer-generated films678. I deal with speculative connections between the animate and inanimate worlds. They take already existing myths, scientific medical works as well as anthropological-ethnographic methods, adapting them into a less anthropocentric narrative. It is precisely in the possibility of hybridity and fragility of the experience of life and death that I find narratives, speculations about the past and future, conceived worlds that have their grounding in reality.
On the other hand, there are works and reflections that take shape after singing at the church during Sunday liturgy. Often, while singing, I find myself in the moment of the past and the future, through the words I utter. By detaching from the experience of the present and the inherited narratives that the church brings, I can create new narratives that relate to the current present time and think about the possible futures that take current events into account. In the works Look Up! I am Not a Canopy – I Am a Messenger!9. I contemplate on the question what does a man who serves insects sound like? How does the texture of his sound change in relation to the Orthodox chant intended to preach to people from the position of a man transformed into an insect?
In order not to restrict the future and the past to their intersection in the present, I set a precedent in the form of fiction that strategically points to the fundamental unknowability of the future. In the neoliberal present, the most important tasks of fiction are rediscovered, and what this precisely means is – questioning and inventing the future in relation to the present.
In the present, the world is completely torn apart, but the question is what would a forum – where a group of completely equal creatures participate in – look like and do we even have the capacity to imagine it?
Texts is written in collaboration with Dejan Vasić (2022).
1Image and link: Sanja Anđelković, Tentactive, Find Your Mixed Breed and Once Upon a Grass, 2018, 2017, 2018; html online game, courtesy of the artist. Link:https://cod3d.si/sanja/memo/?fbclid=IwAR1ebwsSFekfWRe4qdaJNP7FuOxGQvYxT6suKah-_mBGXVaXWWZPCeZM_30; Link: https://sanjandjelkovic.com/Nadi-svog-mesanca Link:https://cod3d.si/sanja/trava/v2/?fbclid=IwAR2fUP96xcSOdyFdTdgvDsu48XK8qAu0T4a8BfinwJwZ-hmw0jC9Zf0InUs2Image and link: Sanja Anđelković, Tentactive, Find Your Mixed Breed and Once Upon a Grass, 2018, 2017, 2018; html online game, courtesy of the artist. Link:https://cod3d.si/sanja/memo/?fbclid=IwAR1ebwsSFekfWRe4qdaJNP7FuOxGQvYxT6suKah-_mBGXVaXWWZPCeZM_30; Link: https://sanjandjelkovic.com/Nadi-svog-mesanca Link:https://cod3d.si/sanja/trava/v2/?fbclid=IwAR2fUP96xcSOdyFdTdgvDsu48XK8qAu0T4a8BfinwJwZ-hmw0jC9Zf0InUs
3Image and link: Sanja Anđelković, Tentactive, Find Your Mixed Breed and Once Upon a Grass, 2018, 2017, 2018; html online game, courtesy of the artist. Link:https://cod3d.si/sanja/memo/?fbclid=IwAR1ebwsSFekfWRe4qdaJNP7FuOxGQvYxT6suKah-_mBGXVaXWWZPCeZM_30; Link: https://sanjandjelkovic.com/Nadi-svog-mesanca Link:https://cod3d.si/sanja/trava/v2/?fbclid=IwAR2fUP96xcSOdyFdTdgvDsu48XK8qAu0T4a8BfinwJwZ-hmw0jC9Zf0InUs
4Image and link: Sanja Anđelković, Stefana Janićijević, Jovana Pešić, Andrea Palašti, Luka Lopičić, Vanja Novaković, Anatomy of a Fatberg, 2021, interactive web game, courtesy of the artist. Link:https://anatomijafatberga.info Link:https://artandscience.rs/2022/07/pobednicki-rad-ascpn-selekcije-2021-anatomija-fatberga-sanja-andjelkovic-jovana-pesic-stefana-janicijevic-andrea-palasti
5Image and link: Sanja Anđelković; Jovana Pešić; DTAFA (Alexandra Fruhstorfer, Lena Violetta Leitner, Ege Kökel, Solmaz Farhang and Andrea Palašti); woodiana.today, 2021, courtesy of the collective Link: https://woodiana.today/
6Image and link: Sanja Anđelković, 10,9,8,7,6..., 2021, computer generated film, film style, courtesy of the artist. Link: https://vimeo.com/646510269
7Image and link: Sanja Anđelković, Different Kind of Heaven, 2020, computer generated film, film style, courtesy of the artist. Link: https://vimeo.com/454049376
8Image and link: Sanja Anđelković and Stacy Lo, Life on Earth?, 2022, computer generated film, film style, courtesy of the artist. Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IT5nAia1dWI
9Image and link: Sanja Anđelković, Look up! I am Not a Canopy - I Am a Messenger!, 2022, choral performance, 3D illustration, courtesy of the artist. Link: https://sanjandjelkovic.com/Look-up-I-am-no-canopy-I-am-a-messenger
– je rođena u Novom Sadu 1991. godine, u kojem živi i radi.Osnovne (2019.) i master studije (2021.) završila je na odseku Novi Mediji, na Univerzitetu u Novom Sadu. Sanjina audio-vizuelna i tekstualna umetnička praksa bazirana je na istraživačkom procesu, sa akcentom na ispitivanju granice između dokumentarizma i spekulativnosti, sa fokusom na pitanja roda, društveno-političkog konteksta, i mesta lične traume. Ona je osvojila nagradu Dimitrije Bašićević Mangelos (YVAA, Beograd, Srbija, 2023).
Portretna fotografija, 2022, foto: Lav Kovač, ljubaznošću umetnice.
Pronalaženje sredine – uzemljenja, i medijalnog glasa između roda i nacionalnosti, ljudi i neljudi, živih i ne-živih.
Potičem iz socijalističke porodice, radničke klase, u kojoj se umetnost nije smatrala zanimanjem. Vodeći se time, prvo sam studirala engleski jezik, i preko vizulenih ekstenzija okružila sam se rečima i mislima. Predavanje engleskog je bilo moj posao, iz kojeg je došla želja za smisaonim, književnim pripovedanjem. Čak i dok sam studirala umetnost, nikada nisam imala osećaj da znam šta radim. Sebe sam doživljavala kao nekog ko je zbog želje za istraživanjem i deljenjem uvek u službi drugih. Ispitivanje kako stvari funkcionišu podsticalo je moju znatiželju ka istraživanjima u nepoznatom, ka neugodnom ali visceralnom.
Nikada nije postojala jaka želja da se bilo šta bude ili postane. Jedina želja u životu mi je bila da budem prisutna i uronjena u aktuelna dešavanja. Nisam mnogo razmišljala o budućnosti. Nisam mnogo razmišljala o prošlosti. Tako sam se usmerila ka temporalnosti kao mogućnosti da se otvori prostor za simultano prisustvo budućnosti i prošlosti, u trenutku.
Kada mislim na sadašnjost, mislim na igru u kojoj postoji delikatan, taktilan, detaljan svet izraza koji nije vođen zadatim tempom sveta. U njoj je sadržan sadašnji trenutak u kojem razvijam mogućnosti za istraživanje, uz uspešne pokušaje, ali i greške. Ako se razvoj meri brzinom, a ne kvalitetom iskustva, koji bi to razumljiv prostor bio za koji bi bilo ko mogao biti zainteresovan? Dječija igra! U svojim radovima Tentactive, Nađi svog mešanca i Trava123 istražujem načine na koje materijalne, ali i digitalne verzije igara mogu biti subverzivne. Pomenuti radovi istražuju radnju kao što je igra, kao strategiju za propagiranje određenih narativa i razvijanje veza unutar hiperobjektivnih stvarnosti: migrantske krize, ugušene životne sredine, divljih urbanih životinja, itd.
Moja praksa je uglavnom podeljena na periode u kojima istražujem različite medije. Sadržaj je sličan, nikada isti, ali na liniji društveno ili ekološki angažovanih praksi. Crpim reference iz različitih aktuelnih fenomena, i radim sa arhivama iz različitih državnih institucija na stvaranju višeslojnih radova.45 Pored toga što se često razvijaju sa timovima umetnika, naučnih saradnika i stručnjaka iz različitih oblasti, radovi postaju intimni međurelacioni priručnik za prošlost i budućnost – trenutak u kojem se sreću ljudi i ne-ljudi.
U toku mog istraživanja na spoju umetnosti i nauke, došlo je do jasnog prebacivanja ka digitalnom. Razlog nije bila moja potencijalna fascinacija tehnologijom, već razmišljanje o tome kako da sačuvam fizički prostor u kome živim, ali i bilo koji drugi fizički prostor. Tačnije, kako da ne pravim više otpada. Umetnost je postala zagušljiva i rasipna u mom svakodnevnom životu. Došla sam do toga da postoji nešto oslobađajuće u lakoći i praktičnosti pri slanju umetničkih radova. Naravno, uvek se postavljalo pitanje materijalnosti dela, ali za mene ona dolazi u različitim oblicima i formama. Moje je mišljenje da materijalnost dolazi sa rečima, a one se mogu materijalizovati kroz 2D TV ekran ili projekciju. Iz tih pronalaženja proizašao je novi opus radova koji se odnose na smrt, njene posledice i mogućnosti.
U mojim kompjuterski generisanim filmovima678 bavim se spekulativnim vezama između svetova živog i neživog. Oni uzimaju već postojeće mitove, naučne medicinske radove kao i antropološko-etnografske metode, oblikujući ih ka manje antropocentričnom narativu. Upravo u mogućnosti hibridnosti i krhkosti iskustva smrti i života nalazim narative, spekulacije o prošlosti i budućnosti, zamišljene svetove koji imaju svoje uzemljenje u realnosti.
Sa druge strane, tu su radovi i promišljanja koja se oblikuju nakon pevanja na nedeljnoj liturgiji u crkvi. Često dok pevam zateknem se u trenutku prošlosti i budućnosti, putem reči koje izgovaram. Odvajajući se od iskustva sadašnjosti i nasleđenih narativa koje crkva donosi, mogu napraviti nove narative koji se odnose na aktuelno sadašnje vreme i razmišljati o mogućim budućnostima koji uzimaju u obzir aktuelne događaje. U radu Pogledaj gore! Ja nisam krošnja – ja sam glasnik!9 razmišljam o tome kako zvuči čovek koji služi insektima? Kako se tekstura njegovog zvuka menja u odnosu na pravoslavni napev zamišljenim da propoveda ljudima iz pozicije čoveka preoblikovanog u insekte?
Kako ne bih ograničila budućnost i prošlost na njihovu intersekciju u sadašnjosti, pravim presedan u vidu fikcije koja strateški ukazuje na fundamentalnu nespoznatljivost budućnosti. U neoliberalnoj sadašnjosti iznova se otkrivaju najvažniji zadaci fikcije, a to upravo znači propitivanje i izmišljanje budućnosti u odnosu na sadašnjost.
U sadašnjosti svet je u potpunom rascepu, ali pitanje je kako bi izgledao forum na kojem učestvuje skupina potpuno ravnopravnih stvorenja i da li imamo kapacitete da to uopšte zamislimo?
Tekst je napisan u saradnji sa Dejanom Vasićem (2022).
1Slika i link: Sanja Anđelković, Tentactive, Nađi svog mešanca i Trava, 2018, 2017, 2018; html online igra, ljubaznošću umetnice. Link:https://cod3d.si/sanja/memo/?fbclid=IwAR1ebwsSFekfWRe4qdaJNP7FuOxGQvYxT6suKah-_mBGXVaXWWZPCeZM_30; Link: https://sanjandjelkovic.com/Nadi-svog-mesanca Link:https://cod3d.si/sanja/trava/v2/?fbclid=IwAR2fUP96xcSOdyFdTdgvDsu48XK8qAu0T4a8BfinwJwZ-hmw0jC9Zf0InUs
