Dan Oki, The Last Super 8mm Film

"(…)What is the message of this re-archiving? Does Oki’s digitalization of already existing archive discover something new or just cast a slightly different light on what has already been known about his artwork, art culture and media art in general? When compared to other examples of self-archiving in contemporary art and history of art criticism suggested by Dew Harrison, the first difference is the content of the systematized material. All the examples given by Harrison have been the attempts to systematize particular super-individual areas of life labeled as “culture”, “the spirit of the times”, “imaginary”, “dictionary” etc. (the title of Warburg’s project “Mnemosyne Atlas ”(1927-1929) illustrates this quite well). On the other hand, Oki’s systematization is focused on his own private and professional life that through the process of revalorization of personal history offers new contents and methods for future art practice (unlike typically (post) modern goal to correct the dominant discourses of art criticism, as was the case with Art & Language’s artwork “Indexes”). In the context of media art, where Oki’s artwork is at home, such revalorization becomes remedialization. Remedialization of “The Last Super 8 mm Film” refers to two things. First, at the level of artistic poetics his Super 8 mm films refer to often neglected thematic aspect of his works. He uses subjectivity, romantic preoccupation with himself as an artist to “soften” media art, determined by technological, economic and political factors. Many of his works support this thesis (Housekeeper (1997); “Forget, Remember and Know” (1998) etc.) Finally, his need for continuous recording of everyday life affirms the filmmaker (artist) as a centre of representational view (universe) (another possible reference to Oki’s films is Jonas Mekas’ film “Lost, lost, lost” (1976)). “The Last Super 8 mm Film” also refers to contemporary culture and the situation in which extremely personal information (birth of a child, summer holidays, daily routine including resting, eating or reading, love and marital relationships etc.) become socially relevant.(…)" (Klaudio Stefancic)

Dan Oki (Slobodan Jokic, 1965, Zadar) is a media artist and film author. In his work he uses the media of film and video, installation, computer arts and the Internet. His works are based on the process of researching personal, visual, and narrative contents, which demand various media forms and the ways of their presentation. During a few latest years, he has focused his interest on hybrid feature-length film and cinematographic database in the context of the new media. He realised his first exhibitions and experimental films in Zagreb between 1987 and 1989. From 1991 to 1993, he studied film and video at De Vrije Academie in Den Haag as one of Professor Frans Zwartjes’ students. In 1996 he completed his graduate (M.A.) studies in media arts at Hogeschool voor de Kunsten in Arnhem. From 1997 to 1999, he studied at the postgraduate studies in film directing and screenwriting at Maurits Binger Film Institute in Amsterdam. He belongs to the generation of artists who in 1990s worked on cinematographic databases, interactive video, CD ROM's, web art and computer animation. He teaches as Associate Professor in the field of film and video art at the University of Split Arts Academy and the University of Zagreb Academy of Drama.

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