MARINA GRZINIC
MEMORY, FICTION AND CONSCIOUSNESS
Marina is a one-woman information resource who connects artists and curators from around the world to the Slovenian cultural scene..
Pop~TARTS met Marina Grzinic in Budapest at The Butterfly Effect The Butterfly Effect symposium, an event called The Moment Before Discovery, where she delivered "Fiction re-constructed", a scholarly paper that examines the Soho, New York, project "Salon de Fleurus" a representation of another world which may no longer be seen but only felt. "Salon de Fleurs" ìs a metaphor for the private experience of memory, fiction and consciousness, a reality reconstructed out of time. This conceptual work is a line of thought that is current in Slovenian art and theory. It follows a parallel course of investigation with the NSK (Neue Slowenische Kunst) movement and their construction of cultural identity.
Marina Grzinic has been a central participant in contemporary art activities and actions in Ljubljana since the mid-1980s. Actually she is working on her own webproject: Marinas Site
She was director of the SKUC gallery, when it was the most outrageous scene for contemporary art in the former Yugoslavia - when the video and performance scene was at itŽs highest level of critical activity. SKUC took on a culturally persuasive role in the 1980s, by events like hosting the first gay meeting in Yugoslavia. In 1989, Marina was artistic director of the Video Biennale CD, which took place at the Cankarev Dom. She served as board member for the Soros Center of Contemporary Art, during the first years of itís activity in Ljubljana, and she advises the Media Information Center at the Moderna Galerija Ljubljana.
Today, Marina Grzinic is the powerhouse of the Slovenian media art scene. She is an artist, critic, curator and researcher at the Institute of Philosophy at the ZRC SAZU (Scientific and Research Center of the Slovenian Academy of Science and Art). Whether she is working as a cultural news gatherer for Slovenian Television, caring for her son David, or producing a new video installation or CD ROM with Aina Smid (who she has collaborated with since 1982), Marina is a one-woman information resource who connects artists and curators from around the world to the Slovenian cultural scene. With a no-nonsense attitude, she simply picks up the phone and makes all the necessary arrangements.
Working as a team, Marian Grzinic and Aina Smid have created more than 20 art projects, which have been represented around the world in festivals, exhibitions, and on television. They were artists in residence for the Residency on Border Cultural at the Banff Center in 1990. In 1995, their video work LUNA 10 (1994), received the highest award at the 38th International Film Festival in San Francisco. LUNA 10 investigates the relationship between Internet, radio, and the1960s film history of the former Yugoslavia...and in a hypertext structure, reveals how the cultural climate of war in the Balkans is related to the story of technology.
Their most current project is a work with IRWIN, part of the NSK collective, to create a CD-ROM entitled MODEL 2000, which will be realized at the ZKM, Karlsruhe in 1996. For this project, they will work with computer graphics, animation and video.