MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art

MoTA Punkt BERLIN, 1-8 February 2011

What is Transitory Art?

By Dunja Kukovec

The art of the last century is (was) subject to continuous tending towards the new; it was called modern at first, then contemporary and finally (new)media art.

Transitory art is art that exposes – at the level of concept and context – the question of the boundary. It represents a digression from the hysteria of capitalism, refusing the terminology that tends towards the new, such as modern, contemporary or (new)media art. It is taking shape in a time when invention per se or novum as such fail to be either a fetish or a solution; for many answers and (short-lived) novelties hide precisely in the substitution or alteration of context, in the transition of/from one reality into another and some or same forms into others.

Our full acceptance, and often abuse of contextuality of truth (and art) notwithstanding, there remains the key question of non-abandoning the boundary, for it is only without boundaries and beyond that the impossible or the absolute may be achieved. Yet in a time of the so-called “open society”, the perception of the boundary represents that very margin that defines both the outside and the inside. If until recently we were insisting that there are no boundaries, then also the beyond as such could not be possible. Today, we know and see clearly where the boundary(boundaries) stands, yet the “beyond” fails to come to pass. Therefore, the key question is not the abandonment of the boundaries or narrowness of views, but rather why, despite out full knowledge and cognition, nothing really changes at the substantial-social level..

Transitory art is consonant with the present in which no one is (does not want to or cannot be) neither in nor out, and in which we are aware of the answers, numerous new methods, tactics and strategies, but still fail to apply them in the geopolitically or technologically separated realities. Transitory stands for flexible, mobile, passing, unsteady or even adaptable; while in formal terms it may represent an event, an impression, a hack, a change of thinking or a gesture not necessarily tied to an object of art.

MUSEUM OF TRANSITORY ART

Collective institutions of the last century that have shaped the paradigm of the present with mnemotechniques, history analysis and systematic archiving, function only under the guise of the universal and the objective; in practice they involve strategies of patriarchal-colonialist forces that create particular worth (and values). One day history will be rewritten anew and archives will be updated.

MoTA museum exists both in real and virtual space. It may occupy either an existing institution or a public space. While at times it may occupy the actual physical space, at other times it is only a contextual framework. MoTA museum is not a national or an “exclusive stronghold”, yet it institutionalizes memory and gives meaning to art. Since collective institutions are a must for the visions of the past, understanding of the present and mastering of the future, MoTA museum is a reconstructed museum that is at once utopia and reality, vision and history.

If avant-garde movements overwhelmed by the futuristic enthusiasm endeavoured to open, bring outdoors the museum of modern art and destroy the archives, MoTA museum adapts to the time-space situation, somehow subordinating to art. Moreover, if museums in the past represented an artistic framework within which everything could become art, now the museum is everywhere where there is art. MoTA museum maintains at least three parameters typical of a museum, but it de-constructs and re-constructs them.

The concept of collection and ownership is being maintained through the production and financing of art projects and artists, the space is a super-space or a network, while Mediatheque and ArtistTalk represent an archive and educational “department”.

MoTA is a museum of transitory art that can really produce something precisely by insisting on the intersection of the established form of museum and the new field of transitory art.

COLLABORATION AND REPRESENTATION

MoTA consistently seeks a networked, horizontal and consensual way of working that finds its utmost expression in an active collaboration. Everyone takes part in decisions and is responsible for a particular field. Along with the support of methods of collaboration, both among artists as well as among artists, curators, theoreticians, producers and spectators, the museum serves the artistic project best if it fully conforms to its content and various needs.

MoTA sets out to represent artistic practices and projects that are often overlooked by the existing institutions. Some artists try to avoid the predictable institutional framework, while at times their practice may shift into other artistic fields.

Since we believe that the attempt of social and artistic engagement that takes the form of discovering, unveiling of, warning against or questioning the socio-political, technological and information reality does not represent anymore (the only) significant deviation from anxiousness, we are also interested in subjectivity as such and the direct and autonomous creative process such as, for example, programming or painting; we aim to research into the potential artistic practices that are introverted on the one hand and formally experimental on the other.

FROM BRIGHT IDEAS TOWARDS THE QUESTIONS OF THE EVERYDAY

Let us now return to the question of the everyday where transitory art searches for and finds a great deal of answers or questions. Science and theory seem not to give much importance to this question and therefore debates about the everyday turn out to be extremely irrelevant or even absurd. However, human life is best manifested in the everyday that constitutes most of our – seemingly happy – lives.

In the revolution of the everyday only art with its transitory nature can facilitate the understanding of ever new realities that differ, above all, by what is or is not allowed, how (are or should) we behave and what state is the physical body in – sitting, standing, walking, running, driving or dancing.

MoTA - Museum of Transitory Art

MoTA is a unique art platform dedicated to the research and production of the Transitory art : Experimental and Live Art. It is a museum without physical space. Its programs are realised in different contexts and locations, both in material and virtual, and spaces in between. Every MoTA affiliated artist, researcher or institution is treated as an equal partner, who aims at overcoming social differences, and exclusivity in various modes of working. MoTA is also an artistic-curatorial initiative whose field of action consists of a continuous redefinition of methods of activity.

MoTA takes inspiration observed in programmed realities found in contemporary societal designs and errors; and aims to produce critical ideas, actions and reactions. It is in constant search for the new, the uncertain and the undefined. With MoTA we redefine the notion of museum in bringing in new ways in the politics of representation (mobile exhibitions, live art, sound art, art in the public space, site-specific, workshops) and archiving (ArtistTalk, Mediateque, online museum).

MoTA mobilises art and other communities in order to produce new thoughts, actions and directions in present realities. It measures contact with the public outside of artistic and academic circles and generates discussion outside auto-reflective concepts of artworks.

MoTA is also the first Artist in Residency program in Ljubljana for media, sound or visual artists, who can live and work in the capital of Slovenia for one month.

ArtistTalk

ArtistTalk is an educational and archival platform based on open source and free culture: open distribution of ideas and knowledge. It presents a series of lectures by artists, curators, theorists and professionals working in the field of art, artivism and media theory.

ArtistTalk is a unique Internet portal, which provides free and open access to high quality video recordings of interviews, lectures, presentations, guided tours of exhibitions and other events from all over Europe.