The Theme Dead Water
The theme Dead Water consists of three installations (Truancy, Irony and Syndrome Imbalance), created in 2016. These works follow up on the series with themes To Float (2008) and Social (2012). They depict man stripped off identity, due to general manipulation, in the process somewhere between life and death, in a levitating state.* The concept of the theme Dead Water expresses a process based on the core of the male-female relationship, that is, on emotional manipulation, thus representing the imbalance syndrome, that which is both banal and sublime.
Water, a synonym for life and memory model, is taken as a symbol of change, where living becomes dead, good becomes bad, clean becomes tainted, etc. This transition into dead water, characterised by the model of the stale, negative, obscured and incomprehensible, is a form of a thematic frame that is equal to man and life. The basic elements that lead to the relationship of manipulation are effecting the feelings of fear and guilt, pain jealousy, causation, provocation, revenge, anger, rage, bitterness.
Using minimal interaction, the work seeks to present an emotion and sensation, a period and state where there are two people re-examining value of the other one, in an attempt at an egoistic submission. The dramatic representation in these works contextualises relationships perceived spatially, through an emotional turmoil of all internal and external factors.
In the work Truancy there are three wall panels made of ceramic tiles. On each panel, there are a female figure (dummy) set in a different position and a water tank. The reflections of the different female figure’s positions allude to movement as well as to stagnancy, time, change, diversity, and at the same time, to supernatural posture hinting to events marked with inner turmoil and mental unease. Hence, the illusion lies in an unaccomplished dynamics and aspects of benumbed and indifferent existence. The head of the female figure is replaced with a water tank containing inanimate and stagnant – dead water. This water is a synonym for the life-animate water. Emphasised cleanness of the panels made of white ceramic tiles alludes to purity, but is actually a representation of everything that is gloomy and impure. The black female figures in levitating positions and the water that has lost its primary property as a life substance become a paradoxical principle which can be identified with the principle of life, when everything becomes vague and every human being oscillates and wanders.
The work Syndrome Imbalance features male figures (dummies) in a group. Wearing formal suits, they are sitting at the table as a ritual site and a place of meeting and making arrangements. One figure is in supernatural floating position, in the state of ascension, in contrast to the other, static, sedentary figures. The ascending figure holds onto a filled-up water tank lying on the table with both hands. The water from the tank carries numerous messages that have brought this figure in such a state, in the state of absence as compared to the other figures at the table. The remaining three figures are static and still. They are the synonym for socialisation and the arbitrators to the fate of the fourth one. The water in the water tank is still, murky, and dead. It contains submerged messages of insult and humiliation which stand equal to the insults that can be exchanged between two persons during a conflict. As a result, the figure in the supernatural position expresses its spiritual unease, emphasising itself as convicted, guilty and a victim, a humiliated and humbled person. In an ascending illusion, it disturbs the balance and symmetry of the arranged, balanced scene and exemplifies the inner unstable rebellion and a tempest which are reflected through its motion.
The work Irony is a representation of a reduced geometrically defined bed made of white ceramic tiles. Around the bed there is a frame, a crown or door, a passage or exit. The frame divides the space of the bed into two sections: in one, there is a dummy of a woman set in a half-lying convulsive position. The dummy is turned so as to express and convey the message of silence, which is still – a word. This, perhaps banal, but powerful word – ‘RUN!’ – is displayed on a screen made of fabric dipped in a murky water tank. The murky water that soaks into the towel with the inscription ‘RUN!’ is connected to the figure of the woman in the background. The word is hers, addressing someone who is physically absent or to a random subject–an observer. The work implies the irony of a relationship where the female attitude is expressed through an arrogant disruption of communication.
* Despotovski, G. “Sudbinski aspekti života“ (Destinate Aspects of Life), a seminar paper, The Academy of Fine Arts, Doctoral Studies of Art, Novi Sad, 2016. [The term I use for comprehensive understanding of such phenomenon, which includes an individual and which is the topic of the paper, is levitation. I use this term to involve the imposed state of a man during the course of life, which can simply be described as the state between life and death, where life is equal to the expectation of death. Exactly this void (Anders, G. “The Obsolence of Human Kind“ – without the world and language in Döblin's novel “Berlin Alexanderplatz“) contextually signifies the relation between presence and absence. Scientifically, levitation opposes gravity. It is a conditional floating and hovering, and for out needs we use it to indicate the place and state between life and death. The term “levitation“ originated from the absurdity and aimlessness of life whose course, context, and meaning cannot be affected and where denial of the differences between life and death becomes dominant.
