The last exhibition in the Second Perspective cycle takes us outside the Pavilion space. As the name suggests, she is motivated by a desire to wander; it is a Croatian translation of the original German term Wanderlust. Tin Dožić’s network project has been running under this name for some time. The project consists of several parts and represents a phase of even wider artistic research that is still ongoing. The contents that can be seen on the pages, according to the collective definition, are subsequently processed photographic and topographical materials in film-narrative or interactive form. The material used was obtained by modern technologies, drone or other digital cameras, or GIS technology – a computer system designed to collect, analyze and display all information about the geographical area, primarily data obtained by satellite images and location, which thanks to universal networking has become part of our daily of life. All this material was created as documentation of Dožić’s own movement through the landscape, ie hiking, but his subsequent processing completely distances him from any documentary. As already mentioned, this is an experimental film essay, based on free collage and artistic processing of images and photogrammetric representations, with accompanying narration and music, or interactive interfaces where the user manipulates cleaning or chooses one of the prepared sequences that regularly consist from the picture and the accompanying text, and this in turn can be a poetic commentary with a picture or a link to a theoretical discussion.

Although he hopes to be quite abstract, thematic, Dožić’s work builds on one traditional, or rather classical, theme of the Western cultural circle: going to nature as an opportunity for contemplation and self-reflection or traveling as a form of self-knowledge. in general. Although the chosen notion of Wandering belongs to the modern age, the literary topos has a longer tradition; from the famous ascent of Petrarca to the Provencal Mont Ventoux, which transfers its experience to St. Augustine, this topos of solitude in the landscape will last for centuries in various literary registers, from confessionals to adventurous journeys; in Romanticism he will experience a new rise, and from it he will be taken over by the modern worldview. It also has a tradition in the fine arts: depicting landscapes, either as an integral part of various painting plots, or as a theme or genre for oneself, is always, in fact, a philosophical study of the subject who observes the landscape. His view, of course, never reflects reality per se, always only what the subject wants to see, therefore, mediated by thought or gaze. Whether it is a totalizing view that sees both the distant horizon and the smallest detail, or an impression based on the sensory dawn of a phenomenon, or an expressionist stereotype that the landscape is recognized as a reflection of the state of mind. , landscape is always an epistemological debate. . To illustrate this topos in painting, it is ideal to recall the famous painting The Wanderer Above the Sea of ​​Fog by Caspar David Friedrich, a painter of German Romanticism, in which the landscape and the face of the observer are not visible. in general – since he is a wandering mountaineer who turns his back on the viewer and stands calmly in front of a panorama, which is also covered with fog, Friedrich’s painting primarily shows the existential state of an individual immersed in his own thoughts.

Although Dožić’s work deals with new, modern, digital technology mediated by the experience of seeing and moving, we dare to establish the continuity of fundamental issues. The physical conquest of space, primarily the natural landscape, is a cultural concept and intellectually purposeful activity (as well as Petrarca’s, by the way, Dožić’s mountaineering experience is accompanied by literature). The fact that technological innovations necessarily change cognitive dispositions, so that the modern model of subjectively embodied view is replaced by polycentric, heteronomous systems of view and representation, does not significantly affect the humanistic meaning of the topos itself. spheres than weigh yourself and your view, both towards physical and technologically mediated reality. This type of measurement primarily refers to hiking, which dramatically changes the daily view of walking and truly represents the world on a new scale. Physical ascent, rising from the foot to the top, automatically means changing the discursive register – when we reach the top, the sublimity of the view will be not only literal but also symbolic because unlike everyday life that takes place in low, comic code, rituals of soul and ascension. the manner of the tragedy and the event of catharsis. Let’s conclude: picture collages and other contents that Dožić offers for inspection in his project.

Text by: PhD Ivana Mance

Virtual exhibition: Tin Dožić: Lutalaštvo / Wanderlust