[SCCA] NEVEN KORDA: LETTERS FROM THE PRESENT

[SCCA-Ljubljana]

PUBLIC ANNOUNCEMENT
No. 4
June 24, 2004

NEVEN KORDA: LETTERS FROM THE PRESENT

On Monday, 28th June at 8 p.m. the new performance Letters from the 
Present by Neven Korda will be shown for the very first time at 
Gallery P74. It will be performed by a group of artists with whom he 
has a long-standing co-operation at the presentation of artificial 
situations. Letters from the present are a performance of sensuality, 
an analogue performance digitally processed and experienced in front 
of the audience – as a slow motion of a splash of time seen passing. 
The sound landscape is also created in the moment of intervention and 
its transitoriness is a compound part of its creation. The live 
performance, i.e. the dancer s world is closed within a Chamber with 
six peepholes. Three are occupied by cameras, while three are 
available for the audience, so they can observe the dancer's 
performance directly.   
The possible duration of the Letters from the present performance can 
last between 1 and 5 hours. The performance is represented by a 
regular succession of the performance for the camera and the 
programmed independent reconstruction of the captured data. It is a 
production appropriate for various types of discursive events and 
festivals: computer art, video and film art, dance festivals, 
discursive manifestations, etc. The structure of the project also 
enables future developments within workshops as well as with local 
performing groups. 

Situation description 
The dancer divides time and maps the space. She uses the tension, 
volume and position of her body. She tries out the movement in time 
and time in movement. The movement (in a sort of first level mediation 
of reality) is shown with the aid of three cameras and a microphone on 
three screens and a sound system. 
During the performance all of the activities are captured with the aid 
of a computer. The computer also registers all of the midi orders 
caused by the dancer and the manipulators. At the same time the 
computer programme also learns the sequence of positions and series. 
Immediately after the end of the dancer s performance it uses 
this 'knowledge' to conduct the database, which runs a manipulative 
reconstruction of the play (as a different type of mediated reality). 
Four (self-sufficient) computers linked into a network now act as 
sources. The reconstruction of the relations according to the learned 
models has to lead to Unity, which is of course monotonous. Once again 
the dancer starts to fill the screens (now monochrome) with her 
images. 

Situation atmosphere 
(During the last few decades the interest for hunger artists has 
decreased. Franz Kafka: A Hunger Artist)
What appears to be a light play full of pleasure, turns into a muddled 
hysteria of forced actions, which serve only to preserving the form, 
which can not be escaped or returned to the beginning. In the 
necessity the choice ceased to exist, as did the pleasure in slavery, 
and the spell with the >Other< in the everyday drudgery to preserve 
the form of relations. The performance &#8211; establishing relations &#8211; is 
brought to an end when the dancer reaches the saturation of all 
possible relations and the physical limits of her body.  
Team
Author: Neven Korda &#8211; a video artist with a long and diverse video 
experience. During the last few years he has concentrated mainly on 
the form, which needs a live interaction between video and computer 
interventions in order to create his artificial situations. 
Choreographer: Igor Sviderski &#8211; established dancer, choreographer and 
dance teacher.
Dancer: ®iva Repov¾ &#8211; a classically trained dancer, in the BMNZ 
performance she was the Runner who ran for 30 minutes without any 
pause. 
Music manipulator: Aljo¹a Rot, better known as Gven Taylor. 3D 
animator, electronic musician. Expert for the Maya programme. 
Video manipulator: Slavko Glamoèanin, programmer, 3D animator and 
electronic musician / visual artist, LOGIK/VJ22.
Video manipulator: Borut Kumper¹èak, creator of multi-application live 
events, visual artist, VJ707.

Produced by Zavod Aksioma, co-producers Zavod Zank, Zavod K 6/4, SCCA-
Ljubljana. The project was supported by the Ministry of Culture of the 
Republic of Slovenia and the Municipality of Ljubljana.

Contact 
Neven Korda 
041 376 283
neven.k at siol.com

Gallery P74
Pru¹nikova 74
Ljubljana
www.parasite-pogacar.si/P74/


SCCA, Center for Contemporary Arts-Ljubljana
Metelkova 6, 
SI - 1000 Ljubljana
tel: +386 1 431 83 85
fax: +386 1 430 06 29
e-mail: info at scca-ljubljana.si
www.scca-ljubljana.si

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