Interview Vladan Joler Winner of Silver Leo: Universities in Serbia are under huge repression, we must resist – society

At the international exhibition that brings together architects from around the world, 10. May together with the Professor and the researcher Kate Kreford, Joler is rewarded For the work of the visual manifesta that accompanies 500 years of control system.

« I would like to dedicate this award to all my students and colleagues of the University of Novi Sad, who have been fought during the corrupt and criminal regime in Serbia. All students and activists who are currently in prison, » Joler said after receiving the prestigious reward.

What is « Calculating Empires: A Genealogy of Technology and Power Since 1500 »?

– « Calculating Empires » It is a four-year survey presented in the form of a map, visualization of 24 meters that systematizes how technical and social structures develop together in the past five centuries.

It literally follows the provocation of Donna Haraway that we must map « Informatics of Domination ». Technologies of today are the latest manifestations of long array of intertwined knowledge systems, technology and control systems. It is the purpose of our visual genealogy: to show complex interdependence of power systems, information and events in space and time, so we can imagine how things could be different.

By setting a spectacle of modern technology development in the context of multi-piled history, this map shows how empires used technology for centralization of power to centuries.

Through thousands of precisely handmade illustrations and texts, Calculating Empires maps evolution of devices, infrastructure and computer architectures, revealing the deep connection of technical and social systems.

How was Cate Kate Referral Care and participation in general at 19. International Exhibition Architecture in Venice?

– Kate Kroford is an internationally recognized scientist in the field of artificial intelligence and its influences on society and nature. My cooperation with her started eight years ago when we left to work on one other map – Anatomy of an Ai System. This map had an amazing path. It is shown at more than 100 exhibitions, was awarded as a design of the year by the design Museum in London, included in the collections of many world museums and was exhibited for three years at the Museum of Contemporary Art (Moma) in New York.

This map that explores materiality and an extended anatomy of one device, as a book of Atlas of Artificial Intelligence, as well as the Knowing Machines project, which gathered an international group of scientists, artists and lawyers who studied how to critically investigate AI systems. The map Calculating Empires, which is exposed in Venice is the result of this long-term project.

Although none of us are an architect, the map itself seems to fit in this year’s biennial. This is probably why it is included in the main selection by Karl Rati Selectors.

We can’t say that you are washed « with great pomp » in Venice because people who do not deal with your or similar work is difficult to follow your work, you are not too media exposed, as they are too media. Still, what was the feeling when you arrived at the exhibition and get this one recognition?

– Venetian Biana is one of the central events in the field of art and architecture and I believe that there is a lot of people at least heard about his existence. However, in Serbia I take a lot of withdrawn life and I have no habit of communicating this public about my work. He somehow has his life in certain international circles that are somewhere at the intersection of modern art, critical theory and technology.

In these some parallel worlds and circles, some of our works are actually recognized as pioneering works. But it is certainly not the case with a popular and media space in Serbia. And it never bothered me. The reward certainly came as a great surprise. In fact, only the experience of stay in Venice during the work setting was equally exciting. Complete chaos from which there are hundreds of huge installations in space.

You dedicated the speech at the award of the award to students and the fight against the regime in Serbia? What did the reactions have greeted you after that?

– Wider, I think I dedicated him to an attacked and made new Sad. His students, professors, victims, injured, exposed and tortured to citizens. I don’t think I had another option and I’m glad I had a chance to do it. It was incredibly difficult for me to read that text but I believed it would mean people.

Despite the message had a very local context, I approached me people from different parts of the world who found themselves in that message. What happens to us is horrible, but unfortunately it doesn’t happen only to us. Due to disturbed value systems, the academic and art community is under repression in more and more countries in the world.

You are a professor at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, how does your relationship with students currently look like?

– Honestly, I don’t think I’ve ever worked at college anymore than now. But in most cases it is not working with students and plenums. Of course, we are there for every call to stop behind, in front of or next to them. But I try to respect the autonomy that they won in making their decisions and create their future.

At this point, I am much more important to me to understand how professors can self-organize and act in this situation without expecting students to resolve everything. That is why I am interesting forms of association such as a free university or new union organizations that arise. Universities in Serbia are under huge repression and we must find ways to resist.

We met on the day the academic students in Novi Sad decided to block college. From professors, it was up to five then to support them in front. It seems like some past life to me.

– I’m amazing. I’m glad you remembered that. Most of the public ties the beginning of the blockade and protests with the blockade of FDU in Belgrade, but at the Academy of Arts in Novi Sad, Drama started a previously with the first protest after the fall of the canopy and the arrest of our student Relieved Stanojević.

The first attempts of the blockade, the professor’s declaration, the first attempts to wake the union and get on strike is an experience that I will never forget. It is a completely incredible amount of events that have happened since. Every week is literally a new episode of this drama with new content. Unfortunately academies and her students were actors some of the most terrible episodes but also the most beautiful. I still believe in a positive breakup.

How do you comment on ignoring (great) part of the public after you received this recognition? It is assumed to be a dedication to the problem ..

– I have no feeling that the reaction of the public is absent. At least that part of the public I care about and to whom the dedication is intended.

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