Unfamiliar Area | Vid Koprivšek: “Cosmetic Piracy”

13 December 2023 > 13 January 2024 Kindly invited to the mini online exhibition "Cosmetic Piracy" by Vid Koprivšek, as a part of Unfamiliar Area project.

 

'A simulacrum is a copy without an original, and a simulation is an imitation of the operation of processes in the real world or systems in time'. (Baudrillard, Simulacrum and Simulation (1981))

The work Cosmetic Piracy by artist Vid Koprivšek is a digital 3D model with texture, light and form. It is a three-dimensional object in virtual space, the reading of which limits us due to the unconventional technique of modelling of x, y and z space. Reading, observation, interaction with a three-dimensional art object is possible only by dividing the space into two-dimensional and three-dimensional ones. A digital 3D object could only be viewed through a hologram or technology that would allow a three-dimensional view.

The texture of the object has no reference, the object exists only in the state of simulation. We can only see it due to the texture. The artist wants to completely empty it of associations, symbols and other ideas, so that the viewer can understand the observed in their own way and add meanings and other interpretations about the object itself. The author wants to redirect and relieve the individual who observes the object, and at the same time he redirects attention again and again to the artificially created world of screens and imitations, which the artwork conveys to us.

Or, in the words of the author Vid Koprivšek: 'Since, in the case of a synthetic image, the state of the original object is obscured, delineated, or even replaceable by a copy itself, the possibility opens up for its counterfeiting, for a kind of performative gesture, where completely authorial interventions can be deliberately concealed in the logic of the object, presented as an object.'

This gesture is only possible due to the nature of reading synthetic images, where the reading of the image as a snapshot always prevails. Such a reading is also conditioned by the postmodern media landscape, which operates according to the logic of the simulacrum – in which an endless multitude of media images is established as a kind of second nature due to complete saturation and referencelessness.

Nina Baznik

In 2021, Vid Koprivšek graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Ljubljana with a degree in painting with a thesis on the relationship between the digital image and contemporary painting, for which he received the Prešeren Award from the UL ALUO. He is currently completing the second year of his master's degree in Video and New Media at ALUO. He is interested in the intersections and parallels of digital spaces with physical painting and sculptural objects, more specifically he is concerned with the use of VR technologies and software for the creation of video games, which he uses in parallel with the principles of fictitiousness to contextualize and expand physical objects. His artistic practice includes new media art (interactive digital installations, digital three-dimensional graphics), a combination of painting and sculpture technologies, and design. He presented his first solo exhibition, Polymer Ooze, created in collaboration with the artist Matej Mihevec, (born in 1995) in November in the DobraVaga gallery. He took part in the group exhibitions Look Ahead in the DLUL gallery (2022), Terminal Drift in the MoTA Lab (2022), Fresh Fish#aquarium in DobraVaga (2022) and No White Canvas in the Small Gallery of the Bank of Slovenia (2020). He has designed several graphic images for series of theoretical lectures and music albums, including the cover of the international music compilation Bag of Toys, for which, together with Matej Mihevec, he received the first prize for the best album image at the Tresk #12 visual competition (2021). He works between Maribor and Ljubljana.

@koprivsekvid (https://www.instagram.com/koprivsekvid/)

 

Cosmetic Piracy, 3D-model, 2023

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Other Unfamiliar Area exhibitions

Nina Baznik: Unfamiliar area (Neznano področje)
and others (at the bottom of the page)
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Curated by: Nina Baznik
Proof-reading (of Slovene): Sonja Benčina
Translation (to English): Ana Makuc
Financial support: Ministry for Culture of the Republic of Slovenia, City Council Ljubljana - Department for Culture