MMSU (MMCA), December 8th, 2009 – January 13th, 2010

Opening: December 8th, 2009 at 7 p.m., MMSU, Rijeka
www.bq3.mmsu.hr

Artists:
Croatia: Helena Bulaja, Vlatko Čerić, Dalibor Martinis, Ivan Marušić Klif
Italy: Elastic Group of Artists Research, Lorenzo Pizzanelli, Carlo Zanni, 0100101110101101.org
Hungary: Marton Andras Juhasz, Adam Somlai Fischer, Janos Sugar, Julia Vecsei
Slovenia: Uršula Berlot, Marko Košnik, Luiza Margan & Miha Presker, son:DA

Artistic Director of the Biennial : Christiane Paul (USA/GER)
Program manager: Ksenija Orelj, MMSU
Curators: Nina Czegledy (HU), Peter Tomaž Dobrila (SL), Darko Fritz (CRO), Elena Giulia Rossi (IT)

Wednesday, December 9th, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., MMSU
Lecture by Christiane Paul: 3 BQ – Perspectives on Media Art Discussion with BQ artists and curators

For the third time the Museum of Modern and Contemporary Art presents one of the most important regional art events – the Quadrilateral Biennale. Its history began in 2005 with a cultural exchange between four neighbouring countries, the members of the Quadrilateral initiative – Croatia, Slovenia, Hungary, and Italy, with an emphasis on presenting contemporary art practice, its recent developments, exciting statements, new forms, and media.
Unlike its thematic predecessors, Relativism (2005) and Heroes of Culture (2007), this year’s Quadrilateral Biennale is for the first time concerned with new media art – the art that uses digital technologies, which have deeply affected contemporary society, as its medium. The Quadrilateral Biennale will examine different angles and intersections emerging from new media in their relation to the specific political, economic, and cultural context of the participating countries.
The curatorial team – Christiane Paul (USA/GER), Nina Czegledy (HU), Peter Tomaž Dobrila (SL), Darko Fritz (HR), and Elena Giulia Rossi (IT) will present 16 works of media and digital art, one of the most innovative fields of art in its aesthetic and technological constellations. On display in the MMSU and at several other Rijeka venues, the exhibition will be integrated into the urban space of Rijeka, which, during the time of the Biennale, will turn the city into the regional centre of new media art.
The exhibition provides insight into characteristics of media art, such as its connectivity, interactivity, and adaptability, thus reflecting on the current state of information society, while transcending national borders and generating a much wider regional effect. In addition to this, the Biennale hosts Christiane Paul from the USA as artistic director, and, in the OFF program, four artists from countries that are not members of the Quadrilateral. This also gives the exhibition the character of a multilateral event, transforming the initial geographic format into an open matrix of the connections and perspectives that form the framework of contemporary media culture.
The curatorial selection offers different perspectives on contemporary art and culture, directing our attention to multiple relations between forms and themes. Among these are Intersections between different media, such as film, photography, and performance, as well as time/space intersections (enabled by telecommunications) and the ones between local and personal histories and natural and technological space. (Christiane Paul)

The Croatian Selection

With the site-specific installation Global Picture / Sensor of Human Condition the artist Dalibor Martinis will illuminate the globe on the Transadria building in Rijeka harbour. Daily reports on the global economy, stock markets, disasters, health, international relations and conflicts, civil freedoms, ecology, and media provide data for measuring the current state of humanity, which, by means of a software application, is translated into changes in the color of the globe. Similar displays will simultaneously transmit the Global Picture in Zagreb and Zadar.
The work of Vlatko Čerić, one of media art’s pioneers, will be represented by the algorithmic abstract animation Pulsation, while Ivan Marušić Klif’s work Telephoning 2 will connect the MMSU with public telephone booths in Croatia, creating a non-material, temporary sound sculpture. The interactive film Mechanical Figures – twentythousandcycles.NET by Helena Bulaja, inspired by the life and work of Nikola Tesla, guides the user around the world and through the history of technological and social development, from Zagreb to London, New York, Tokyo, and New Zealand.

The Italian Selection

In their series Synthetic Performances, the duo 0100101110101101.org reenacts historical performances by icons of contemporary art in the virtual world Second Life. The Elastic Group of Artistic Research explores metaphors of the contemporary urban metropolis in the video Remix City – an informational matrix that interweaves economic indicators, technological processes, statistic data, and image and language systems.
In his work Marinetti alla Quarta the artist Lorenzo Pizanelli brings to life the spirit of F. T. Marinetti, the founder of Futurism, by means of artificial intelligence, while Carlo Zanni manipulates the reality of space and time by creating a hybrid film genre mixing documentary and fiction, net art and film.

The Hungarian Selection

In his work iGarden, Marton Andras Juhasz examines the borders between science and art, trying to illuminate the invisible, quantitatively inexpressible relationships between people, technology, and nature. In her composite, interactive video Rendez-vous à seconde, Julia Vecsei explores urban and everyday life in the same location at different time intervals.
In the video-installation Mute, Janos Sugar ironically transforms TV broadcasts of actual electoral debates from different countries into a discussion about power relations within the system of contemporary art. With his collaborators, Adam Somlai-Fischer, trained as an architect, built a new kind of camera, the Wifi Camera, which visualizes a dynamic – invisible to the eye, but actually omnipresent – electromagnetic space established by wireless connections.

The Slovenian Selection

In their installation Formication, the artist duo Luiza Margan & Miha Presker show living organisms, ant colonies, whose life emerges through the drawings they make, forming a new and dynamic drawing topology. Uršula Berlot is also concerned with the intersection of nature and technology, science and art. In her video-work Pulsation, she tries to penetrate the mechanisms of cognizance and creative processes through the diagnostic methods of X-rays, embodied in moving images of the author’s brain.
In the work Panorama, the artist duo son:Da shows how we increasingly identify with technology, thus losing our central position in our relationship to the world of machines. In his interactive installation Ditopia Signpost, Marko Košnik enables the viewer to get acquainted with the museum as institution (location, facilities, people…) and investigates the issues of public and less public spaces, as well as the perception of space from different angles and technological positions (net connections, surveillance cameras, navigation systems…).

Program:

Tuesday, December 8th, 2009, 7 p.m., MMSU, Opening of the exhibition: 3rd Quadrilateral Biennale
Arca Fiumana – After Art Party, 9 p.m.

Wednesday, December 9th, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m., MMSU
Lecture by Christiane Paul, Artistic Director of the Biennale: 3 BQ – Perspectives on Media Art
Discussion with BQ artists and curators

Wednesday, December 9th, MMSU, 2 p.m., Accompanying program
Žarko Violić (Croatia): happening Scents and Odours – Taste Sculpture,
Reach of Smells and the Perception of Taste

Tuesday, December 15th, 2009, 7 p.m., MMSU, Accompanying program Presentation of the Proceedings of the International Symposium (New) Media Art in Museums
http://mmsu.multilink.hr/

Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009, 7 p.m., MMSU, Accompanying program
Tomislav Brajnović (Croatia): Presentation of the international interdisciplinary project The Arctic Circle / http://www.thearcticcircle.org/

BQ Tour
Wednesday, December 16th, 2009, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.
Tuesday, January 12th, 2010, from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m.

Applications for the BQ tour and guidance through the exhibition: +00385 51 492611, 492 615; mmsu-rijeka@ri.t-com.hr
Entrance fee: 15 Kn

BQ OFF program
From Tuesday to Friday, January 19th – January 22nd, 2010, MMSU
The invited artists introduce themselves: Alban Muja (Kosovo), Tanja Ostojić(Serbia / Germany), Nada Prlja (Macedonia), Michaela Strumberger (Austria)
Friday, January 29th, 2010 – 9 p.m. – 1 a.m. MMSU, The night of the museum – VJ- ing@mmsu.hr; VJ-ing: lole.kee.bolek, DJ-ing: miće mace

BQ3 is part of the collaborative project X-OP: eXchange of art Operators and Producers. Project is partly funded by the European Commission, DG Education and Culture, Culture Programme