Satelite Station, 8mm film found on a
flea-market in Belgrade, was accepted among the members of the multimedia group
Kosmoplovci as a piece of powerfull poetry as it was, so they decided not to
make any interventions on it, but to record it again and underline it with
original music.
The old 8mm (promo-educational) film about the
construction of the first satelite station in former Yugoslavia in late
seventies, contains a sort of introduction which is a contemporary survey on history of human kind through history of
comunications, and also offers a vision of promissing future.
Filmed process of Japanese and Yugoslav engineers
building together a huge technological miracle in deep yugoslav province, with
touching seriousness and dedication, depicts not only (now lost) naivety in
faith in progress, but also reviels certain specific beauty in simplified
design of the material which was meant to impress and fascinate.
The station, officially opened by president Tito himself,
looks like a futuristic monument of hopes and expectations.
To record it again by web-cam, symbolically, as a
confirmation of the significance of the only left document of its existance (
it was destroyed during the war in 1999.), and to follow the fascinating rythm
of rising concrete sceleton by Corrosion music, was a way to bring its
monumental function back. The strongest impression is the aesthetic
domination of the construction growing into
an element of spring landscape and shining through expected future time.
Playing with spectator' s ability to
empathize, avoiding any sort of focalization and comment, Kosmoplovci also
achieved a certain paradoxal symbiosis of compassion and irony, showing how
easy it is to turn expected future to unexpected past, so the station becomes a
metaphore of the grotesque contrast between two aspects of the same time
period: expected and realised.
Aleksandra
Sekulic
Satelite Station was screened for the first time in October Art Saloon in
Belgrade 2001.
Kosmoplovci is a group of artists who are experimenting with digital
forms and alternative comics, web design, video and music. It was founded in
2001. by joining already active computer demo groups (Corrosion) with
alternative comic authors (Studio Strip).