gray) (area

space of contemporary and media art . Korcula . Croatia

presents .
Alban Muja: I-scream / Free Your Mind
guest curator: Ana Peraica

21 – 26 . 8. 2007

. opening . Tuesday 14. 8.    22 - 24 h

-----

Ana Peraica: I-scream

The formulation I - scream comes from the cult movie "Down by the  
law" (1983) by Jim Jarmusch, featuring Tom Waits, Benini and others.  
In the prison three prisoners are repeating as mantra:

"I scream, you scream, we all scream for ice-cream"

until they make a revolution that allows them to escape, along with  
the movie narrative, possible.


It was actually Alban who promised me an ice cream in our e-mailing,  
if we manage to "escape" on the island Korcula, in the Grey Zone...  
The title reflects the condition of Internet society (I-society) in  
which we are finding ourselves previous to our escape, communicating  
from different places.

I - scream also reflects the topological "I" position (where I is  
written always with a CAPITAL "I", or where the AngloSaxon capitalism  
shows up symptoms of political identity / 1 = 1 /, ego centre as the  
ultimate authority.

While in the actual time of grown-ups disasters reflecting on us are  
near cataclysms, as conflicts, in times of our childhood – the  
biggest catastrophe was - falling of an ice cream. We all remember  
our childhoods, as in TBF song, being dirty of ice-cream.

There were three types of ice-cream; "na kugle" (on balls), "na  
automat" (on the automatic machine) and latter - industrial cornetti.  
Ice - cream was a currency having a good exchange rate between adults  
and kids. One could save the award for latter, still it rarely  
happened. It is notable majority of ice-cream caffes in socialism  
were run by Albanians. Times have changed... Now, between national  
identities and "I" identities there is a gap to be "screamed out" (a  
voice broken through).

Alban Muja's communication or mis-communication videos, as  
"Palestina" (2005)," Agreement" 2006) are showing the symptom of  
translation of "I" position, its displacement.

Anyhow... I can write whatever now, as a theorist. Actually I want to  
eat ice - cream on Korcula. And of course, I would not miss to  
develop some theory here too; the last definition comes; eating ice  
cream is a pleasure, a childish hedonistic act.

Sounds good for a concept?

http://anarchiva.blogspot.com/2007/08/icream-grey-zone-korula- 
island.html

----

Alban MUJA: “Free your mind” -Video 9:45 min . artist statement

One of my first projects that I completed is a video entitled Free  
your mind. The video of Marina Abramovic was my starting point and it  
gave me the idea for my work.  However, I was not very happy with the  
first form of the idea and, therefore, I continually tried to find a  
way to differentiate my work from that of Marina.
What should an artist do to respect the source of his inspiration,  
the work of a famous colleague who has made a name for herself, and  
at the same time, to distance himself from that work and that name,  
and to become himself?   For a moment, I thought about how I could  
free myself, not from the influence, but from the torture of trying  
to find myself in the work of another artist, if I repeated loudly  
the famous name, until it lost its meaning.  Then, I realised that  
this is a way to be freed from every name and influence.  I started  
to spontaneously call the names of the artists that came to my mind  
and who have influenced me in one way or another.  I felt that I was  
doing some kind of exorcism.  In a way, I was respecting those names,  
but at the same time, I was freeing myself from a weight, from all  
that I had accumulated on my mind in the form of preferences and  
influences, by taking them off me and converting them into empty  
sounds, which one after another, were lost in time and space...

Read the whole essay:

  http://anarchiva.blogspot.com/2007/08/icream-grey-zone-korula- 
island.html


)( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( )( ) 
( )( )( )( )( )( )(

gray) (area is located 10 meters by the sea in the basement of The  
Memorial Collection of Maksimilijan Vanka [http://www.hazu.hr/ENG/ 
MemColl_M_Vanka.html] . Put sv. Nikole 7 . Korcula


open daily 21 - 22 h or by appointment

gray) (area is an initiative by Darko Fritz . [log in to unmask] .  
tel +385 [0] 91.5800193



Program is realized in collaboration with Ghetto Club (Free Art  
Academy), Split, Croatia.

---

Open daily until 26 August 21 - 22 h.