I am an apologist with a knack for ritualizing history

Dragan Živadinov is an icon theatrical avant-garde, an inseparable part popular culture and art of the former SFR Yugoslavia. One of the founders New Slovenian Art, drew general attention to himself with his first big one Bitefovski a performance Baptism under Triglav (1986) and that attention - among other things, with his (so far) last play Blackout Suit. Oratorium (2018) – held until today. In his native Slovenia, he is currently being awarded the Prešeren Lifetime Achievement Award.

"WEATHER" For starters, something quite local - you were in Belgrade at the end of November and socialized with the local students of the University of Arts. More precisely, you held a public lecture for them at the Yugoslav Cinematheque. What exactly is it about??

DRAGAN ZIVADINOV: Wow, how time flies. Yes, I had Information Noordung: 1995-2025-2045. It's like it was all a long, long time ago. You won't believe what has happened in the last two months. The information was part of the International Conference, held at the University of Arts in Belgrade from November 22 to 24, entitled "Activism and art - historical experiences and participatory practices". The purpose of the discussion was to bring together international experts in the field of art and performance studies and to present different practices of the historical avant-garde and activism in culture and art in the contemporary context. The symposium's sections were solidarity in art, feminist rebellion and political performativity. First of all, the utopian nature of activism. I myself do not swear by utopian but by heterotopian. Presentations of works from the symposium were held at the University of Arts, and information was held at the Yugoslav Cinematheque. After everything we have experienced in recent decades, the name Yugoslav Cinematheque sounds proud. Similar to the Yugoslav Drama Theater or KPGT. My theater teacher Ljubiša Ristić taught me exactly forty years ago: there will always be student rebellions in the world. In times of rebellion, always support and encourage students. Always! He was, comparatively speaking, one of the best directors in Europe. He was certainly, next to Milet Korun, my best art teacher I ever had. With all my consciousness, and above all with my heart, I support students.

How was Belgrade that day for you? - with its noise and its silence? Whether, in a way, he still retained the aura of exciting new wave of the city that pushed the boundaries in the period of your youth and ours?

The world expects a lot from man. The world expects a lot from Belgrade, if not more. A man dies only once, and Belgrade has been destroyed countless times, and is rebuilt again and again from the historical ruins. I swear by cities, not states. I swear by New York and Novi Sad. I am at home in Ljubljana, Trieste and Zagreb. But I am mostly at home in Moscow and Star City. The night before the performance at the Yugoslav Cinematheque, I had the premiere in Ljubljana. The very next day after the Belgrade informant, I had reruns of the play in Ljubljana. So I stayed in Belgrade for only one day. Excuse me, you can't even imagine how much I know about the art of Zagreb-Belgrade Zenitism. And just about the Belgrade surrealists... About their mutual antagonism. About their dangerous relationship. On the one hand, the tragic internationalism and Serbianness of Ljubomir Micić in one person, and on the other, the most important surrealist for me is Stevan Živadinović - Vane Bor, with whom I identify. Not to forget to mention the great Leonid Sheika and his conceptualization Harrow, Garbage dumps i Trap, who still live today in the artistic spirit of Belgrade, because I could see them in a reincarnated form a few years ago Cabinet of Wonders u The indoor museum Dragan Papić. Not to mention how much Mirjana Miočinović and Irina Subotic, who live in this city, mean to us. That evening, when I was returning to Ljubljana, I experienced the sensitivity and grandeur of Belgrade. At the same moment, it seemed to me that Zenitism and Surrealism had merged after a hundred years, as if they had never been in conflict. Ugh, how difficult it is to understand historical distance. Together with Dunja Zupančič and Miha Turšič we built Cultural Center of European Space Technologies (KSEVT), with the aim of culturalizing the cosmos and cosmification of art for the needs of post-gravitational art, and in fact we should have built an institute for - historical distance! Only when you have distance in yourself, you can be solemnly silent and never hate.

Do you notice any new substance in people after the covid 19 pandemic?? And regionally, and worldwide? Which historical period does this time remind you of the most??

Everything has changed. So far I do not recognize the substance. Except for serious danger! Escalation of control over people is more than obvious. People are now even ready to self-regulate in the name of the state and, even worse, in the name of capital. I studied history before studying art. After two years, I decided to study art anyway. Mostly because I don't have the brains for critical thinking. I'm more of an apologist with a knack for ritualizing history. And I have no sense of humor. Not having it is basically my program! But I had excellent history professors who definitely taught me the historical method. The method helps my art again and again. History as a science and the historian as its operator have a deep need to recognize the historical pattern, the matrix, in order to recognize the meaning from it. Maybe even the truth. And for now, none of that. It's me homo ludens apologist. This is also the reason why I admire philosophers so much. I don't want to understand the geopolitical reality. I understand art in a comprehensive way!

Today, the dictates of the oligarchy are everywhere, we admire Mammon again by rushing headlong into the hell of acquisition at any cost. Where is the place and purpose of art? Is her refined voice still strong enough to teach us something and turn the tides to lead us in a new direction?

Allow me to help myself again with history, which, unfortunately, is still too young a science to - from a known set of samples and defining a sampling matrix through the conceptualization and processing of events and micro-events - reveal their repeatability and what it is like to be a human being over time. Only philosophy, art and religion can recognize this, and that intuitively. The greatest possible need for a "new enlightenment" is revealed! And that is exactly why I am so dedicated to the culturalization of the cosmos. Do you know that even in low orbit there were no humanities scientists yet? I am against the militarization and commercialization of space with all my energy! Ugh, horror, it is from space that today the greatest possible total control of humanity is carried out.

As an artist, I fight against the binary world. Its final consequence is conflict and bloody drama. The world is quantum after all. Binary is exploited by all the ideologies of the world. Positional and oppositional. The answer is simple - the artist is powerful enough to shape the world! He never teaches him anything. In art, creating stylistic formations with the help of new tools, we create a new reality. It is necessary to read the books in the edition Logos. You have an excellent translation of Serbian books Biosphere and noosphere Vladimir Vernadski, scientist, geologist and, ultimately, cosmonauts. It has not yet been translated into my native language. Who knows when that will be…if ever.

From our previous conversation for "Time" from 2020. a lot happened in the year. Then we talked about your premiere at the time Biocosmism: PROVERB where the main figures were Marko Brecelj and Marko Mlačnik. Veliki Brecelj left us forever in 2022. years, but in the play just staged Rotulus Homo Pendulum - in which you also participate - he is still living life to the fullest! Tell us., please, a few words about this event.

In the play we play in the "Pogon" hall in Zagreb, we present the anti-myth of Marko Brecelj and his syllable melodies. Marko has formatted and vocalized more than a hundred syllogism. They, in my opinion, belong to the continuity of poetic poetry, derived from the artistic experience of the poets Aleksey Kruchonikh and Velimir Khlebnikov. Bretzel gives rhythm to selected syllables and equips them with a melody. The performance is a dynamic memory of Marko in the name of his "work" and his "deal". There is no world without "agreements". Everything is in agreement. Everything else is hegemony and depression.

Marko Brecelj is in itself a sublime act of art and anarchy. When I say anarchy, people mostly think of chaos and terrorism. We left-wing anarchists create disorder in times of order. In times of disorder we create order. Today is a mess. Our plays are like that - full of order. In this performance, we meet completely different artists, connected by the philosophy of a joint venture under the name - Marko Brecelj. That's how I meet my son Aljoša Živadinov Zupančič on stage, which is a special privilege. I meet the names: Damir Bartol Indoš, Tanja Vrvilo, Dina Puhovski and Zlatko Burić Kićo, Dragana Milutinović, Domagoj Janković, Amanda Prenkaj, Sven Jakir, Hrvojka Begović and Ivan Marušić Klif. Beautiful names and all that in the name of Marko and Ariana Brecelj. From name to name!

photo: jože suhadolnik / work

Godina 2025. is also important for your fifty-year-old show, which is still going on, Noordung: 1995-2045. What exactly will her replay look like on this occasion?

Three moments of the fifty-year-old performance Noordung: 1995-2025-2045 are crucial in 2025. The first moment. We transformed the theatrical word "reprise" into the word "iteration". Word iteration, both in the literary-theatrical and in the mathematical sense, accurately describes our theatrical situation. Word iteration is more precise in relation to the final meaning of theater art. Second moment. The final position of the fourteen artistic satellites – umbota – will be placed first in equatorial orbit, so that in exactly seven days all fourteen satellites will be simultaneously transformed by the trigger. Artistic satellites will become probes. We will direct and send artistic techno-apparatus in fourteen cosmic directions. With Dunja Zupančič and Miha Turšič, as post-gravitational artists, we belong to the cosmic philosophy of Nikolai Fyodorovich Fyodorov and the tradition of cosmonautics. Not the tradition of astronautics. The difference is that the astronauts travel to other planets, equipped with props in the tradition of the white "Wild West". They stick a flag into a planet or a natural satellite and say the word: mine! With their flight, cosmonauts want to look into the depths of the cosmos, whether there is a god or not! For this, they need appropriate equipment, like rockets... Dunja Zupančič and I build devices aluvectorials – works of art with a similar mission. The third moment. The third iteration will take place on April 20, 2025 at 22 p.m. at the Cultural Center of European Space Technologies (KSEVT) in Vitanje, transformed into the Herman Potočnik Noordung Center, a pioneer of space science.

In your plays, you have always dealt with intense forms of manifestation of life in a certain time, where is philosophy, art and transience indicate as a tangle of modern senses, with which our existence and concepts are questioned. Your performances are also a kind of rite of healing for society. Do you feel a huge responsibility every time before such a task?

I'd like to believe you're right. In the art of the last century, Dadaism contained methodological irresponsibility, which can be explained by a whole set of historical circumstances. This irresponsibility was then partially transferred to surrealism and, later, to contemporary art (for example Fluxus). Dunja Zupančič and I do not belong to contemporary art, but to developmental art. However, in the art of development, the word responsibility has a great meaning. Let me explain it: there are external and internal reasons that encourage artists to be irresponsible. Just to remind you of the Cabaret Voltaire in Zurich. Let's remember Dragan Aleksić and his Dada Joko and Dada Dzez. I draw your attention to two books about it: Dr. Jasne Jovanov, entitled Dragan Aleksic, and Dr. Kristine Pranjić, with the title Juice-Dada in the context of European avant-gardes. With the advent of developmental art, however, everything changes. If, for example, the sculptor Auguste Rodin creates a bronze sculpture in the 19th century, the viewer looks at it without any danger. But if an imaginary future artist produces his installation out of uranium or plutonium, we reach a point of responsibility, first to himself and then to the viewer, because of radioactive radiation. Artwork must be formatted to ensure security. With this comes responsibility for the material considered and shaped. So it is with politically activist artwork. There is no postgravity art without responsibility.

Why are you so attached to avant-garde artistic practices?? What is essentially significant that they brought into the world?

An interview is too short a format for this answer. I will single out constructivism and suprematism from the historical avant-garde. The first Sputnik satellite was formed from the logic of Suprematism. From constructivist logic, the first geostationary station Mir. Postgravity art cannot exist without avant-garde computer art. The programming of art satellites and art probes is shaped by a similar logic. Most avant-garde movements date back to 1913. In St. Petersburg, Mayakovsky performed the stage text on Friday in the Lunapark theater Vladimir Mayakovsky - Tragedy, and on Saturday, Malevich and his friends - Victory over the sun. Similarly, in 1913 in Paris, Marcel Duchamp produced ready-made: everything I declare to be a work of art is a work of art. In the second step: everything I touch in the process, I guarantee with my touch that it is a work of art (1950). In the third step: the artist must not touch the work of art (1980). In the fourth step: everything is potentially digital and scannable (1995). In the fifth step, in the 21st century: everything is digital and everything can be programmed and algorithmically formatted into artistic applications (2019). In the sixth step, we witness a separation in two directions (2025): on the one hand, the continuity of techno-humanist art, on the other, the beginning of artificial intelligence (AI) art. For which we still do not know how we will memorize it.

What is your personal goal in art, ie: what is the most you want to achieve in creation, What should you tell people??

To begin the answer: God creates, we post-gravity artists - process! My goal is simple. The materialization of the fifty-year-old performance Noordung: 1995-2045 and thereby achieving abstract techno theater in zero gravity conditions. For absolute Zero. There is no abstraction without the gravity of Zero. I come from the conceptual art and computer art ideas of the 1960s by Edward Zayetz. The ultimate goal is to achieve post-gravity art. And therefore the achievement of the cosmification of art in the real cosmos and, consequently, the culturalization of the cosmos, based on post-gravitational principles, without repeating the mistakes of humanity in gravity One. Ultimate!

Art movement Neue Slowenische Kunst started its activity in 1984, therefore, 40 years ago. How today, as one of the founders, you are looking at the magnificent achievements of this collective? What do you remember most strongly about its beginnings?? What are its ultimate ranges?

I'm not looking! But I still have to mention two points: that I am more than satisfied and even proud to have been part of the retro-garde movement Neue Slowenische Kunst. At the same time, I want to say how this movement got its name at my suggestion and after the magazine The storm expressionist artist Herwart Walden, who in 1929, together with the Slovenian avant-garde theater director Ferd Delak, edited and printed a special thematic issue under the name Young Slovenian Art. Delak held a lecture in Berlin on that occasion Neue Slowenische Kunst. Let others think about the ranges and detonations of the NSK state!

On what day will you be presented with the Prešeren Award for 2025. - a truly great and significant recognition. With all congratulations, we want to ask you: how after all the decades of his active involvement in the theater, on earth and in space, you feel in these situations? Is there even a reward for an artist that comes from the outside world, or does he have to build it from within each time for himself and his ensemble of collaborators?, in one's own hard work?

There is! Let us slowly, according to the years, in peace, and once again in peace, finish the artistic task! But this recognition will in no way stop me from completing the projected theater act with Dunja Zupančič in the next two decades!