Inter/Trans-Disciplinarity as a Platform for Seeking Universal Common Ground: From Speculation to Pragmatism Through Kristina Pulejkova's Wedding Route Art Project

Ana Frangovska

doi:10.25038/am.v0i21.366

Authors

Ana Frangovska

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i21.366

Keywords:

inter/trans-disciplinarity, trans-mediality, Kristina Pulejkova, politics, ecology, technology, Macedonian contemporary art, science, speculative pragmatism

Abstract

This paper aims to present one specific case study of the inter/trans-disciplinarity and inter/trans-mediality in Macedonian contemporary art – a project of the young Macedonian artist Kristina Pulejkova. The project, titled Wedding Route, is an immersive installation that deals with the overlapping of knowledge gained from the natural sciences and arts, while also questioning politics, ecology, technology.

Wedding Route deals with the life cycle and migration of the critically endangered European eel. No matter where they live, once sexually mature, they turn into a silvery color and make their final arduous journey back to Sargasso Sea, driven by their instinct. Lake Ohrid (the largest in Macedonia) is currently being artificially populated with eels, as this animal has been unable to migrate into the lake’s waters since 1962 when the first hydroelectric dam was built. Globally, the European eel population faces rapid declination, and its story is very much that of man-made borders, overfishing and death caused by habitat decline and climate change, hence preventing its millions of years old migration back to the Sargasso Sea.

Through an inter and trans-disciplinary approach that combines art, science, and technology, working with moving pictures, sound, and installation, Pulejkova aims to build subjective narratives relying on scientific data and principles. The project and its outcome is a pure example of speculative pragmatism, since through theoretical exploration and artistic visual simulation of the location and the appearance of the act of eel spawning (since scientists have so far only speculated on the occurrence of this mysterious event) she offers a pragmatic discussion on ecology, migration, and politics in general.

Article received: December 23, 2019; Article accepted: January 31, 2020; Published online: April 15, 2020; Original scholarly paper

Author Biography

Ana Frangovska

National Gallery of the R. N. Macedonia; Institute of Art History and Archeology, Faculty of Philosophy, Skopje
Macedonia, the former Yugoslav Republic of

Ana Frangovska is an art historian and a curator. Born 1978 in Skopje. Graduated Art History and Archaeology in 2001 at the University “St. Cyril and Methodius”, Faculty of Philosophy in Skopje, Institute of Art History and Archaeology. She earned her MA at the same Faculty in 2017. She is a senior curator at the National Gallery of the R. N. Macedonia since 2006 and a lecturer on the Institute of Art History and Archeology, Faculty of Philosophy, since 2016. Selected international curatorial projects include: ‘Essence of Existence’, exhibition of contemporary Macedonian art, Art Center Lauba, Zagreb, Croatia, 2015; ‘Transfiguring’ – conceptual group exhibition of Macedonian contemporary art, Czech Centre Prague, Prague, Czech Republic, 2014; ‘Bread and salt’ – conceptual group exhibition of Macedonian contemporary art, Porcia Palace, Vienna, Austria, 2013; ‘Silentiopathologia’, Elpida Hadzi-Vasileva, Pavilion of Republic of Macedonia at the 55th Venice Biennale, Italy, 2013; ‘Crucial in selection”, Flemish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Belgium, 2008.

References

Bebaise, Didier, and Isabelle Stengers. “L’insistance des possibles. Pour un pragmatisme spéculatif.” Multitudes 65 (2016): 82–89. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3917/mult.065.0082

Grusin, Richard. “Reading Semblance and Event, Postmodern Culture.” Journal of Interdisciplinary Thought on Contemporary Cultures 21, 3 (January 2011). doi: 10.1353/pmc.2011.0018. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1353/pmc.2011.0018

Ivakhiv, Adrian J., “Whitehead’s return, ecology’s boon.” UVM Blogs (blog) (April 29, 2012). Accessed on January 4, 2020. https://blog.uvm.edu/aivakhiv/2012/04/29/whiteheads-return-ecologys-boon/

James, William. Essays in Radical Empiricism. Cambridge, Massachusetts and London: Harvard University Press, 1976.

Kac, Eduardo, ed. Signs of Life: Bio Art and Beyond. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2007.

Manovich, Lev. The Language of New Media. Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 2002. DOI: https://doi.org/10.22230/cjc.2002v27n1a1280

Massumi, Brian. Semblance and Event. Cambridge, London: MIT Press, 2011. DOI: https://doi.org/10.7551/mitpress/7681.001.0001

Massumi, Brian. “Undigesting Deleuze.” Los Angeles Review of Books (November 8, 2015). Accessed on January 4, 2020. https://lareviewofbooks.org/article/undigesting-deleuze/

Massumi, Brian. Parables for the Virtual: Movement, Affect, Sensation. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2002. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1215/9780822383574

Pulejkova, Kristina. Carbon Memories, catalogue. Skopje: Museum of Contemporary Art, 2016.

Souriau, Étienne. The Different Modes of Existence. Paris: Presses Universitaires de France Univocal, 2009.

Stocker, Gerfried, Christine Schöpf and Hannes Leopoldseder Radical, ed. Atoms and the Alchemist of our time / Art Electronica 2016, Festival for Art. Linz: Technology and Society, 2016.

Vilic, Nebojsa. Reflections on New Object Art. Skopje: Horizons Unlimited Ltd., 1996.

Whitehead, Alfred North. Process and Reality. An Essay in Cosmology. New York, NY: Macmillan Publishing Inc., 1929.

Whitehead, Alfred North. Modes of Thought. Toronto: Macmillan, 1966.

DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i21.366 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i21.366