Residual Aesthetics: Rethinking Zoran Todorović’s Warmth Against the Benchmark of the Anthropocene
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.25038/am.v0i28.628Keywords:
Zoran Todorović; posthuman; hair-based art; waste; abject; ungrievability; Anthropocene.Abstract
This paper examines Zoran Todorović’s Warmth, an artwork composed of cut and discarded human hair, exploring its aesthetic, political, and social implications through the lens of marginal aesthetics, abjection, biopolitics, and posthuman theory. Drawing on thinkers such as Julia Kristeva, Rosi Braidotti, and Judith Butler, the analysis situates hair as abject, waste, form of life, and un-grievable within broader contexts of cognitive labour and the ecological crisis. The paper aims to argue the agency of discarded hair as a material, instrument, and method in contemporary art to disrupt the anthropocentric discourse by decentering the human along the lines of Braidotti’s theory of posthuman subjectivity.
References
Berardi, Franco “Bifo.” The Soul at Work: From Alienation to Autonomy. Translated by Francesca Cadel and Giuseppina Mecchia, 73–89. Semiotext(e), 2009.
Braidotti, Rosi. The Posthuman. Polity Press, 2013.
Bourriaud, Nicolas. The Exform. Verso, 2015.
Butler, Judith. Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? Verso, 2009.
Colebrook, Claire. “We Have Always Been Post-Anthropocene.” In Anthropocene Feminism, edited by Richard Grusin, 1–20. University of Minnesota Press, 2017.
Čubrilo, Jasmina. “Documents on Experiments in Biopolitics.” In Zoran Todorović: Warmth = Toplina: [The Serbian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennial, June 6 – November 22, 2009], edited by Zoran Todorović. Museum of Contemporary Art = Muzej savremene umetnosti, 2009.
Davis, Heather. “Life & Death in the Anthropocene: A Short History of Plastic.” In Art in the Anthropocene: Encounters Among Aesthetics, Politics, Environments and Epistemologies, edited by Heather Davis and Etienne Turpin, 347–58. Open Humanities Press, 2015.
Demos, T. J. Against the Anthropocene: Visual Culture and Environment Today. Sternberg Press, 2017.
Dimitrijević, Branko. “Warmth/But If You Take My Voice, What Will Be Left to Me?” In Zoran Todorović: Warmth = Toplina: [The Serbian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennial, June 6 – November 22, 2009], edited by Zoran Todorović. Museum of Contemporary Art = Muzej savremene umetnosti, 2009.
Douglas, Mary. Purity and Danger: An Analysis of Concepts of Pollution and Taboo. Routledge, 1966.
Foucault, Michel. The History of Sexuality, Volume 1: An Introduction. Translated by Robert Hurley. Vintage Books, 1990 (original 1976).
Jankov, Sonja. “Savremene umetničke prakse kao vid interkulturalne komunikacije sa izbeglicama sa drugih kontinenata.” Interkulturalnost: časopis za podsticanje i afirmaciju interkulturalne komunikacije, 18 (2019), 22–33.
Kristeva, Julia. Powers of Horror: An Essay on Abjection. Translated by Leon Roudiez. Columbia University Press, 1982.
Mbembe, Achille. “Necropolitics.” Public Culture 15, no. 1 (2003): 11–40.
Mbembe, Achille. Necropolitics. Translated by Steven Corcoran. Duke University Press, 2019.
Šuvaković, Miško. “Unavoidable Antagonisms or Three Biopolitics: Biopolitical Modalities in the Artistic Productions of Zoran Todorović.” In Ogled, Winter 2022. Edited by Anica Tucakov, https://www.zorantodorovic.com/text/
Rancière, Jacques. The Politics of Aesthetics: The Distribution of the Sensible. Translated by Gabriel Rockhill. Continuum, 2004.
Rancière, Jacques. The Emancipated Spectator. Verso, 2009.
Reno, Joshua. “Waste and Waste Management.” Annual Review of Anthropology 44 (2015): 557–72.
Todorović, Zoran. Zoran Todorović: Warmth = Toplina: [The Serbian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennial, June 6 – November 22, 2009]. Museum of Contemporary Art = Muzej savremene umetnosti, 2009.
Todorović, Zoran, and Miško Šuvaković. Z.T. Intenzitet afekta: performansi, akcije, instalacije – retrospektiva Zorana Todorovića/Z.T. Intensity of Affect: Performances, Actions, Installations – retrospective of Zoran Todorović. Museum of Contemporary Art Vojvodina, 2009.
Vuković, Stevan. “Art in the Field of Bioeconomics.” In Zoran Todorović: Warmth = Toplina: [The Serbian Pavilion at the 53rd Venice Biennial, June 6 – November 22, 2009], edited by Zoran Todorović. Museum of Contemporary Art = Muzej savremene umetnosti, 2009.
Internet sources
Artist’s Portfolio Page: Todorović, Zoran. “Warmth.” Zoran Todorović. Accessed May 31, 2025. https://www.zorantodorovic.com/portfolio_page/warmth/.
Vimeo Video: Todorović, Zoran. Warmth. Video, 2:10. Vimeo. Uploaded August 24, 2016. https://vimeo.com/181954128.
Cambridge Dictionary. “Hair.” Accessed May 31, 2025. https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/hair.
Interview on Ogled: “Zoran Todorović: Umesto sažetka – intervju.” Ogled. Accessed May 31, 2025. https://ogled.org/intervjui/zoran-todorovic/.
Artist Statement on Blog: Todorović, Zoran. “Stejtment umetnika.” Umetnost: Blog o umetnosti. Accessed May 31, 2025. https://umetnost.wordpress.com/stejtment-umetnika/.
News Article on Nova.rs: “Umetnik čije je delo sklonjeno: Todorović – Kiš brka pojmove.” Nova.rs. September 10, 2021. https://nova.rs/kultura/umetnik-cije-je-delo-sklonjeno-todorovic-kis-brka-pojmove/.
News Article on The Guardian.com: McClure, Tess. “This is ground zero for Blatten: the tiny Swiss village engulfed by a mountain,” The Guardian, June 1, 2025. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/jun/01/this-is-ground-zero-for-blatten-the-tiny-swiss-village-engulfed-by-a-mountain.
Downloads
Published
How to Cite
Issue
Section
License
Copyright (c) 2025 AM Journal of Art and Media Studies

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
The content on this site is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License.
AM Journal of Art and Media Studies ISSN 2217-9666 - printed, ISSN 2406-1654 - online, UDK 7.01:316.774
Contact: amjournal@outlook.com
Publisher: Faculty of Media and Communications, Singidunum University, Belgrade, Serbia
Indexed in: ERIH PLUS, EBSCO, DOAJ, and in The List of Scientific Journals Categorization of Ministry of Education, Science and Technological Development of Republic of Serbia (M24 in 2021; M23 in 2023). Beginning with No. 12 2017, AM is indexed, abstracted and covered in Clarivate Analytics service ESCI.