Boštjan Čadež: SELF-PORTRAIT, New Media Installation
Galerija Drugo more / Art Gallery / Korzo 28 Rijeka Croatia

6 – 22 November 2014
Exhibition opening: THU, 6 November 2014 at 8 pm  

Drugo more is pleased to present “Self-Portrait”, an exhibition by Boštjan Čadež. You are welcome to join us on Thursday, November 6 at 8 pm for the exhibition opening and to meet the artist.

“Self-Portrait” is a new media installation in which a laptop is observing itself in the mirror with a webcam. It is “sat” on a chair in a white empty space, connected to a device (Arduino) for translating computer code into mechanical operation. Arduino feeds the code into two rotary engines, which are fixed to the upper left and right corners of an easel. A globular plastic rope is affixed to the engines’ bearings; ball by ball, it guides the movement of the drawing pen over the painting surface. Boštjan Čadež upgraded and customised the complex code for computer vision with which computer entities learn to detect physical space. The laptop draws its vision of itself and simultaneously calculates, adjusts and transmits its vision – but not in a linear fashion, say from left to right or from top to bottom – rather, it transpires point by point, in line with the momentary “decision” of the computer, or rather, in accordance with its calculations. During the exhibition, the laptop is going to produce one portrait, or croquis, per day. These portraits are going to be exhibited in the space and thus become a new (self-referential) element in the laptop’s field of vision.

We may ask ourselves: Is there an element in computer vision that can be inventive without human intervention or without referring to human existence? The computer’s creative moment can be understood, above all, as a glitch, that is, an error – a glitch, however, that cannot be so grave as to cause the self-destruction of the system. Possible deviations will emerge through a comparison of all self-portraits that are going to be drawn during the exhibition. While Čadež is indeed the author of the code that guides the computer’s vision of itself, he allows the possibility of attributing authorship to the computer when it comes to errors. We can easily attribute originality to that which departs from the already seen, that which is new and unpredictable. If unpredictability is inscribed in the source code as such, then the computer is no longer merely the executor of the matrix; rather, it “creates of its own accord” and it records deviations from the prescribed behavior and, in so doing, it creates its own strokes, such as those we admire in fine art painting.

Boštjan Čadež (b. 1979 in Ljubljana) is an intermedia artist. He studied industrial design at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana. During his studies, he received an award for outstanding accomplishment for the design of the Sporty tyre, which is still produced by the company Sava. At the same time, he was active as a graffiti and street artist, and he published three compilations of audio reactive animations on the website of Winamp, a very popular mp3 player at the time. With the interactive computer toy Line Rider, designed under the supervision of Professor Zdravko Papič, he had success in the global market and for this work he received a prestigious award for innovation at the computer game developers conference in San Francisco. Afterwards, in collaboration with artist Velibor Barišič, he took part in the PPP Box project in which major galleries at home and abroad exhibited the works of several dozens of artists. Since 2009, he has been focusing on the field of real-time generated and generative computer graphics.

Organized by: Drugo more
Supported by: National Foundation for Civil Society Development, Foundation Kultura nova, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Croatia, City of Rijeka – Department for Culture