Dorotea Škrabo: PLEASE DO NOT TAKE PHOTOGRAPHS

http://aksioma.org/no.photos/

Today’s tools of image production have turned everyone into a producer, distributor and consumer of images. In the current condition of information overload, images are among the most transferred content: via instant messaging, social networking platforms like Facebook and Twitter, micro blogging tools like Tumblr, and services like Instagram and Snapchat.

We can't forget this when considering the work of younger generations of artists, who happen to be “users” of digital devices and participants in the social networking economy, even before being “artists”. Trained in art and design, “digital native” artist Dorotea Škrabo has grown up in this kind of environment. Before existing as an artist, she existed as a computer and smartphone user. To her, online image production is a performative gesture in a way that artworks can’t be understood as autonomous artifacts, but as traces of the artist; and “viewers” are not consumers of a finished artifact, but are an active part of an ongoing process.

In her new installation Please Do Not Take Photographs designed for Aksioma Project Space, Škrabo draws upon these premises. The show consists of two main pieces. In Let Them Eat Cake, images are printed on cakes. These edible treats represent a “snap” published on “Snapchat ”, a phone app that allows a user to develop an intense dialogue with others through images. All posts are deleted from the user’s Snapchat story after 12 hours. The temporary nature of the pictures therefore encourages frivolity and emphasizes a more natural flow of interaction. The visitors of the exhibition are invited to take a piece of cake, offering a metaphorical, yet playful and engaging comment on the ephemeral nature of online images. The second piece, Musée du Lowres, is a replica of the part of the Louvre where the Mona Lisa is exhibited. The central piece is a screen in a baroque framing displaying a video of the artist impersonating Leonardo's masterpiece. Mobile devices, loaded with several images, texts and emoji, are applied on the surface encouraging visitors to slightly mutate the artwork by swiping through their contents. Beside the centerpiece, a series of video snaps are displayed on mobile phones along with oversized golden-framed prints of their captions, ironically subverting the traditional relationship between visual artwork and contextual information.

Production: Aksioma – Institute for Contemporary Art, Ljubljana, 2017

Artistic Director: Janez Janša
Producer: Marcela Okretič
Executive Producer: Sonja Grdina
Public Relations: Urša Purkart
Technician: Valter Udovičić
Documentation: Jure Goršič

Part of U30+ Aksioma Institute production programme for supporting young artists.

Thanks to: Loški muzej, Petra Švajger

Supported by: the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.