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Claiming the Stage: Ballettikka Internettikka pt 2
- by Josephine Bosma (Amsterdam, The Netherlands)
- Published by Cream
- April 25th 2002
The work of Slovenian artist Igor Stromajer is amongst the most innovative and at the same time classical net art around. Andreas Broeckman, director of the Berlin Transmediale festival, described it once as "classical net art conceptualism". Yet the work of Stromajer does reach beyond where other net artists tend to stop. Igor Stromajer is one of those net artists who are not afraid to take the conceptual space of net art outside the technological space of the internet or the world wide web. Ballettikka Internettikka could be seen as a follow up to Stromajer's Oppera Teorettikka Internettikka from 1999. This work developed out of the desire to present internet projects in a different way then the usual lecture at a conference. It was a small step for the former theatre man (1) Stromajer to move from singing - to dancing html code. One other reason behind the development of Ballettikka Internettikka was the desire to support the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow (2) and the wish to interfere in the almost mythical status of this same theatre. Stromajer: "It's the top place for dancing and we wanted to demystify it. I wanted to dance there as a non-dancer and was dancing there in the name of all the ballet dancers world-wide: all of them who cannot dance in the Bolshoi, but would like to, because the Bolshoi is an international symbol for classical ballet." The new political situation has brought changes to Russian cultural politics as well, but like with the Kremlin, it is hard to change a bulwark like the Bolshoi. "The new general director of the Bolshoi theatre, Anatoliy Iksanov, told the press in Moscow that he would like to include new dynamics into his theatre.", says Stromajer, "Well, Ballettikka would certainly be an opportunity for him." But despite Ballettikka Internettikka pt 1 winning the first prize at the Media Forum festival in Moscow in 2001 and a sufficient budget for the project to which the Bolshoi would not have had to add anything the famous Moscow ballet theatre never reacted to the letters from the artist and he had to change his strategy. It was decided to perform in the Bolshoi illegally and still 'transmit' this live via the net. March 28th 2002 Igor Stromajer and 'mp3 conductor' MC Brane entered the Bolshoi theatre via a basement window, after first having been stopped at the main entrance with bags full of equipment. The eleven minutes of live webcasting were watched by more then 400 people. An amazing amount, which even the artist did not expect. Not only did they see Igor Stromajer dancing, but they also saw the conductor of the 'mp3 orchestra' - as Stromajer calls MC Brane - who ironically conducted the mp3s on his laptop like a true Herbert von Karajan. The video of the whole event catches the excitement of the event well. Shot in black and white it leaves one a bit with the feeling of watching an avant-garde performance straight from the early twentieth century, if it weren't for the laptops and mobile phones, of course. Both dancer and conductor wear a kind of miners light on their heads. The movements of the light, the speed and accuracy of the operation, the bare abandoned basement and the concentrated moves by Stromajer and MC Brane create a sense of conspiracy that replaces the so-called interactivity of on-line art without it being missed. In a way it is still there, in the intimacy of the small circle of people who watch this event live, while the management of the Bolshoi theatre watches a classical ballet. A wonderful project, enchanting and funny.
(1) See an interview with Igor Stromajer dated may 2000
http://laudanum.net/cgi-bin/media.cgi?action=display&id=971771270
(2) See first announcement of Ballettikka Internettikka on the Syndicate mailinglist:
http://www.v2.nl/mail/v2east/2001/Feb/0063.html
Ballettikka Internettikka:
http://www.intima.org/bi
Igor Štromajer Intima Virtual Base Virtualna baza Intima Igor Stromajer www.intima.org Igor Štromajer
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