The All-Aligned in the Context of Art History

Lav Mrenović

Writing an art history text about the last art project of Uroš Krčadinac turned out to be a paradoxical job. The author of these lines is tasked with analyzing All-Aligned, as Uroš called this project, which, according to the artist's intention, criticizes the tribalization of society - the accelerated division of citizens into smaller, necessarily conflicting (because identity is also built against what it is not). social groups or micro-identities. At one point in writing this text, I realized that by analyzing Uroš's work, I constantly categorized him, in fact assigning him identities and classifying him against the dominant concepts in the world of contemporary art. It didn't make sense for me to continue doing what the work of art, for which I had previously decided to stand behind because I believe that what it has to say is relevant, said it was wrong. I deleted everything I had written so far, so that, of course without success, I would try to perform some kind of experiment in writing that would bypass the limitations of categorization and somehow (magically) synthesize theory and experience. I returned to writing by approaching it the way it is usually done, and from another time, after this whole experience of failing to avoid categories, I understood All-Alligned much better.

Analyses of works of art cannot begin without their descriptions. Therefore, it is best to call All-Alligned an art project, a very broad term which means that all the endeavors that an artist undertakes as part of his artistic activities (there is usually a central point where all activities meet and it is most often aestheticized) are also part of that artwork. The focal point of All-Alligned is software that can generate (almost) infinitely different flags according to the criteria offered to the user for him or her to make his or her own, personal, his or her flag (this automatically places All-Alligned in the category of interactive art). The criteria that the user encounters are different identity markers that vary from national, through political and ideological, to gender, and which are based on anthropological research of identities of students currently living in the Student City in Belgrade, as well as the immediate experience of Uroš and me during our joint one month long stay in Studenjak during which we had the opportunity to learn more about the relationship of students with identities. The software was conceived, designed, and written by Uroš before our move to Student City, where he constantly adjusted his work under the influence of the experiences we had with the students we presented the software with and worked on in workshops, adding criteria that students wanted to choose. In the public spaces of Studenjak, Uroš approached the students briefly presenting what the software he made was, and then asked them to make their flags. As expected, since the flags provoke strong emotional reactions, the feedback we received was varied and ranged from anxiety because there is a possibility to make a minority flag in the software to the curious acceptance of the game and generating completely impossible flags.

This was the most neutral possible description of what Uroš art project is. It should be followed by an analysis that must use professional terms, and historical categories, which are operational in the sense of enabling easier orientation, especially important in the contemporary moment characterized by a state of opacity, but they are still subsequent ideas, while contemporary art production is hybrid, eclectic, versatile. As it is case with most of Uroš's artistic work so far (and his other activities), they all inhabit the border areas between different disciplines – design, programming, education, literature, to mention the key ones – so much so that it is difficult to resist and not read the title of All-Alligned from meta perspective in which it would function perfectly as Uroš's motto. If we accept that it is impossible to classify this project into any fixed category from which it can be read completely (and safely), the only option is to approach it from different parts in the hope that it will bring us closer to a more complete understanding.

If All-Alligned had to be placed in one category (and unfortunately we all know that in the end, it must be) they should be placed primarily among digital arts, or more precisely in the subcategory of generative art, given that it is software whose outcomes are in this case flags which are in a constant, unpredictable, emerging to practical infinity. However, Uroš consciously uses the medium as a message, namely he chooses the medium of generative digital technologies to underline the acceleration of social fragmentation that takes place in digital spaces, most often on social networks, as well as dystopian or ironic (depending on the mood of the observer about the neoliberal concetion of emancipation that ends in a more equal representation) that hints at its infinity, randomness, but also the loss of control over the user's self. Uroš's intention with the infinity of the generator, or as he likes to sometimes call it “flag supermarket”, is to provoke a feeling of over-saturation. He is disturbed by the unfolding of identity fragmentation, and he sees digital spaces, social networks, and their design as the culprit, in which profit takes a more important place than caring for any harmful social processes. Uroš is not interested in generative art as a formalist game that destroys the concept of fixed work of art, he is interested in subverting the technology that is most often served as exciting and fun in the art world, and behind which lies the technofetishism of Silicon Valley insensitive to the public good.

Uroš is decisive in his critique of the digital sphere, but he is not an opponent of modern technologies, his critique always carries the germ of alternative scenarios in which the emancipatory possibilities of technology are released. What he has a problem with is the way technology is used, which he sees in a profit-oriented social order. He is concerned about the design of monopolistic social networks, which encourages conflict in them to keep users, which will provide income by displaying advertisements.

However, as part of the art residency program, we had the opportunity to queer Uroš's work using it for an originally unplanned purpose by inviting students to generate flags not for themselves, but for students who are shown in historical photographs from the Student City archives dating back to the 1950s when Studenjak was built. Here we created an environment in which it is possible to play with, and make yourself aware, attributing identity to generational, ethnicity, and gender wise Other with the results of the workshop where students were divided into groups got identical photos for which they were supposed to generate flags. It turned out that all the flags, although the same photos were in question, were generated differently, which underlined the subjectivity, fluidity, and hybridity of the identity. The potential for different uses of Uroš's software is equal to its generativity, while identity markers, or the criteria according to which flags are generated, can be further collected through such case studies, which could become an ongoing art project with no visible end.

Uroš's work is also the work of experimental design because it is software that designs a new flag every time with the help of user input, but it is also an educational art project that has a clear goal to convey the experience to the user because it is first and foremost work of art, but also knowledge, to the ordinary user of social networks of invisible processes that curate (!) its contents that will inevitably shape his perception of social reality (but also the psychophysical state and much more). In case the notion of pandemic art survives in the harsh economics of concepts, Uroš's artwork will be one of the more relevant projects that do not refer directly to the Covid-19 pandemic, but have much to say about the huge divisions that have emerged in digital spaces (places that were the only available spaces outside homes), primarily the collapse of the Enlightenment paradigm in which science and medicine are believed through the growth of the anti-vaccine movement. The irreversibly harmful role that directly led to unnecessary deaths was played by social networks which, in their “freedom” and “neutrality”, allowed the mass dissemination of false news, information, and conspiracy theories to make record obscene profits.

Finally, but by no means the least important, even more, deserving of special emphasis is the fact that Uroš's work is, and so is the All-Aligned, a work of art with a global perspective. As a consequence of intensive neoliberal globalization, the vast majority of artists in our country, but also around the world, have integrated the artistic language of the global system of contemporary art, but few in the local scene have dealt with what globalization is and what its effects are. There is something a bit suicidal in Uroš's works and this one, but also Bantustan's, that at the moment when the borders of political correctness are being built, which are very sensitive, he is trying to break them down. He is not a neoconservative who opposes emancipatory movements, but a radical humanist who is aware of and respects unequal geopolitical, racist, patriarchal, and capitalist forms of domination, but believes that the only way to overthrow them is through collective action. There is also a key between, let's admit, Uroš's fascination with the design of impossible flags and his experience of destruction caused by Balkan nationalism. Somewhere between celebrating the diversity of individuals and cultures and refusing to over-identify with any of it is the balance that Uroš wants to achieve, but more important than that is the path to it – and is, to begin with, to be aware of the emotional power of identity symbols and who benefits (not only materially) when we are passionate about them.

This essay was published within the catalogue of the first All-Aligned exhibition, organized in the Students' City Cultural Centre (SCCC) Gallery in Belgrade, within the international art project They: Live – student lives revealed through context-based art practices.