Theatre show “À la Cart Performance Webshop: Drugo more Edition”
Big hall
Start: 8 PM

Exhibition “À la Cart Performance Webshop”
Gallery
Exhibition opening: 9 PM
Gallery working hours: October 10 – 24, 2015.
Mon-Fri 10 AM – 1 PM, 4-8 PM, Sat 10 AM – 1 PM

Performance Webshop: Betrayal of Art or Critique of Consumerism?

Two young Slovenian artists and founders of multidisciplinary artistic collective KUD NUM iz Škofje Loke – Nina Jan and Urša Sekirnik – in 2014 started their À la Cart Performance Webshop project. On their a-la-cart.com website, costumers can browse their offer composed of a sequence of relatively short Chapters (described by text and video), choose the wanted Chapters and compose them into a performance show, with an option of designing their own Custom Chapter. After getting a transparent insight into overall cost, buyers can decide the place and time, submit the form and order the live performance of the show.

At first glance the project may seem as just another innovative way of monetization of art, whose expressions in the era of consumerism are being treated as products, and their makers as precarious workers who need to adapt their artistic pursuit – for the ideals of beauty, point of life, or critique of social injustice – to the laws of the market, reducing their art to commodity and kitsch. By actually founding their performance webshop on the mentioned idea of condition of the current artistic reality, Jan and Sekirnik however developed their project as a sharp and witty critique of existing existential need of artistic submission to the tyranny of supply and demand.

That can be noticed in the very content of the offered Chapters, directed to problematize the artist’s status in the age of Post-Fordism, characterized by the flexibility of working hours, increased mobility of workforce and increased production of products that not only have to be useful, but to look good as well, follow the latest trends and give impression that they can be adapted for individual needs. Further more, while the illusions such as the freedom of choice and costumer’s power to control the market are being some of the main characteristics of consumerism, general idea of À la Cart Performance Webshop was to encourage the “buyers” to actively and responsibly take part in the processes of artistic creativity. Giving the public an opportunity to decide what to watch to some may seem as the prostitution of art and it’s creators, the authors point out that by encouraging discussions about that problem and setting up transparent prices that correspond to the real value of artistic work, actually lead to development of a mechanism that protects the artistic integrity of an artist, and an attitude about wanting more of their life than self-exploitation, exhaustion and oversaturation of their minds.

*
*            *

With a plan to host À la Cart Performance Webshop in Rijeka, from the end of July to begining of September Drugo more had given an opportunity to social media users to vote for one of the proposed webshop Chapters, as well as to develop one of their own. Highest rated Chapters will form the „À la Cart Performance Webshop: Drugo more Edition“ show, that will take place at 8 PM on Saturday, October 10, in the big hall of Filodrammatica.

After the show, the opening of the À la Cart Performance Webshop exhibition will follow at 9 PM, taking the visitor behind the scenes and give a broad presentation of the project as a whole. It allows the visitor to peek into the making of the project, get to know the artistic process and see the current development. Exhibition will be opened until Saturday, October 24, workdays from 10 AM to 1 PM and from 4 to 8 PM, and Saturday from 10 AM to 1 PM.

Also, on Friday, October 9, Jan and Sekirnik will hold a “How to be a good consumer” workshop, that will start at 5 PM. Read more about the workshop and how to sign up here.

*            *
*

Urša Sekirnik (1986) worked as a member and co-founder of ARWA experimental movement collective between 2004 and 2007. In 2010 she became a co-founder of KUD NUM, a multi-disciplinary artistic collective, based in Škofja Loka, Slovenia. Through the work with KUD NUM she has focused more and more on performance and cross-media art, and has become increasingly interested in concepts such as customization, Post-Fordism and abuse of marketing procedures.

Nina Jan (1986) is a conceptual artist, performer and director. Her conceptual work that covers the fields of performance art, installation, film and internet art often investigates audience friendly ways for interactivity as well as questions the default settings of artistic media, artistic processes and the creative position of the author herself. Within the À la Cart Performance Webshop she has become increasingly interested in developing alternative marketing strategies for performance art practices and exposing the effects of Post-Fordist production on the artistic realities.

Program is realized as part of Masters & Servers, a joint project by Aksioma (SI), Drugo more (HR), AND (UK), Link Art Centre (IT) i d-i-n/The Influencers (ES).

Program is realized as part of  Galerija DM program.