Željka Blakšic AKA Gita Blak
Željka Blakšic AKA Gita Blak
NEW GENERATION
HD VIDEO with sound, 5:22 min
*all images are stills from the video
New Generation is a short animated video that relies on photographs found in START magazine, one of the most popular newspapers in the seventies and eighties throughout the territory of former Yugoslavia. This video is a part of a multidisciplinary project that integrates moving images, sound, photographs, texts, objects, and reproductions of personal archival material.
It originated from my research-intensive practice and my passion for collecting objects, texts, and archival footage from Eastern Europe, more specifically Yugoslavia.
The project is realized through two critical inquiries: The first examining archival material of START and the second looking at the contemporary spatial implications of architecture purchased under the Yugoslavian regime in the heart of the West.
The starting point of this research is the 485th issue of START, a magazine published in the summer of 1985. Its hybrid nature combined the characteristics of a newspaper that featured erotic elements with those of an intellectual magazine focused on progressive, emancipatory, and critical analysis of current affairs that brings to light the various use of sexual discourse in the cultural and political context of socialism.
I am suspending the archival material in motion, applying subtle interventions, and presenting this material in an experimental new context.