A robot is a neoliberal ideal of the 21st  century.  A large chrome plated cog in the machine working day and night, in the civilization where the human force is insufficient to beat the last year’s  productivity and market share.

A robot is a promoted symbol of the high-tech civilization of the New Age and its applied intelligence.  It is a product that is to produce/manufacture other products. A replicant of a replica. The  efficiency ratio in the profit ratio.

A robot is a disciple of a new religion. Artificial intelligence rooted in a new myth on omnipotence of research and results from laboratories dealing with experiments with hyper-conductors and nanomaterials used for creating the “consciousness” of that human substitute in the form of a robot-machine.
A robot is an officer decorated in his persistent struggle of scientific creative efforts against humanistic-deistic tradition. An unfolded flag symbolizing  victory of a scientist  over  a priest. A new hero of the new world.

When all these prerogatives are aligned creating a clear picture of the nature of robot civilization, an obvious question arises: where would be their place in the today’s Serbian society, in the environment without large-scale industrial plants, space technology laboratories   and awareness of a permanent necessity that the boundaries of the world should be moved for a mile  on a daily basis?

Therefore, this society may need a necessary, permanent and omnipresent symbol to remind us of the scope of ultramodern robot civilization we are aiming at, although with a delay. An earthly sign of the cosmic technology, the gate for the tomorrow’s world.

A grand monument of the future, a permanent reminiscence of the things which are to come, instead of the things of the past. One kind of  compulsory reversible onward memory.

And then, of all the possible things, robots as toilets and buildings? Yes! Yes.

Just before the factory «Zastava» welcomes its plainly  constructed “colleagues” with simply processed mechanical arms and short-term programmed “minds” for processing  car bumpers, just before another Serbian factory gets some other assembling machines simply called “robots”,  until such superior technology of machines with human features, arms and legs is introduced in this environment, we shall need “the robot” who will, in a designer manner, point to this necessity, the robot as one kind of an artistic applied game with the modern civilization.

And for some time a public toilet has been one of compulsory norms of the civilization, a structure which expresses the awareness that machines should replace man force in majority of tasks. And, not the least surprising, one more thing in which the Serbian society does not comply with the defined regulations of the society Serbia wishes to become a part of and the conscience of which  Serbia wishes to adopt for good.

Having seen public toilets made as chrome plated humanoid robots, Nikola Bozovic offered a kind of compromise but honourable solution. Combine – put two things into one object, warn people about the future and the obligations of that future, make both notions look like the signs of progress and a big step toward the better tomorrow,  rather than the symbol of impurity and ignorance.
The civilization of optical cable, molecular accelerator, cosmic probes, GPS, global network, Blue Ray signal and virtual presence –  actually demands  that you assume such an attitude.

Branimir Gajic

Robots in Zvono Gallery

Zvono Gallery is hosting an exhibition of Nikola Kolja (Kolya) Bozovic, a Belgrade artist of the younger generation, well-know to the audience of the exuberant exhibition programme of this gallery situated in 5 Visnjiceva Street. The exhibition title is extraordinary - “Let’s Build the House for Robots!” and the exhibition represents a logical follow-up of his previous exhibitions in Zvono Gallery (“Be Strong“and “Robot Invasion “). Those who are familiar with Bozovic’s work have already become fond of his anthropomorphic, zoomorphic and amorphic robots who express emotions and, accordingly, have interesting names (“Sad Boy“, “Baby“, “Bunny“, “Grumpy“, “Robot in the Wind “).

This time, elated by his emotional relationship with his metallic “pets”, the artist has decided to construct an imaginary house for robots and to present his professionally made design for such building in Zvono Gallery. Bozovic made various designs of “The House for Robots” using printing technique on aluminum plates. These are not (only) genuine architectural designs, since this modern artist easily shifts from one medium to another, but the structures – paintings that can be observed as works of visual art with multiple meanings. Bozovic’s „houses for robots “ irresistibly look like modern shopping malls and, as such, they may reveal only one of the meanings embedded by the artist in these works and a possible criticism of the declining and decadent consumer society in which a buyer or a consumer is reduced to a robot subordinate to the imperatives of large corporations.

In his earlier artistic works Bozovic also dealt with social issues and phenomena. We still remember his exhibition of paintings and performance with professional bodybuilders “Be Strong”, held in the Spanish Cultural Centre “Cervantes“ in Belgrade in 2004. His exhibition “The Big Leader” held in 2001 in Zvono Gallery was also noted as an exhibition in which the artist ironically treated the issues of dictatorship, repressive politics and devastated state economy.

Even though the works presented at his first exhibitions were exceptionally interesting, it was his series of robots and exhibitions with Zvono Gallery presented at modern art fairs and shows in Vienna, Cologne, Moscow, Miami and other centres that attracted the deserved attention of art lovers. Thus, many Bozovic’s robots stayed there, “to live and work abroad” as rare technologically immaculately made “export” products, the products made in Serbia, polished to their perfection.

Along with his robots, for the past few years Bozovic has also worked on a series of abstract painting on aluminium. Even though these paintings contain some echoes of the forms Bozovic used in making his robots, we may say that they reveal the artist’s different interests in purely visual aspects of the form, colour and computer generated lines. In an exceptionally modern manner, the experiences of expressionism, op art and other painting traditions intertwine on Bozovic’s paintings. The final products are rather psychedelic paintings with overlapping 2D and 3D forms. Although these paintings have been exhibited abroad, with Zvono Gallery, our audience has not had an opportunity to see them, which is another reason for visiting this extraordinary exhibition.
Ljiljana Tadic, director Zvono gallery