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BEYOND BORDERS
What you're seeing is emptiness.
There's nothing in it.
When you fill it with sound, laughter or colors,
you've changed it.
This is what Maribor sounds like.
I'm Mimi. I'm from Cakovec and I come from the ACT association,
that is Autonomous Center from Cakovec which cooperates with Kibla from Maribor.
We're here at Kiblix, an international festival.
At Kiblix festival I work within the free radio Kiblix.
The festival came about within the New Media Cross Border project
with partners from Cakovec, Varazdin,
and Slovenian partners from Presenjakovci, Onej association.
We started the New Media Cross Border project in 2011.
Stjepan Mikec, New Media Cross Border, project manager
It's a result of 10 years of working of ACT in the field of free culture,
which includes various models of knowledge exchange,
free software, free licenses,
social awareness.
Basically, we tried to establish a stage in cooperation
with the International Festival of Computer Arts,
a creative multidimensional platform
which allows flow of international artists
with local art production scene.
There were two types of activities in the project.
One was opening space for cooperation
through organizing concerts, artistic interventions and residential meetings.
The other type was strengthening of individuals in independent culture.
In the latter type the so-called Dozen took part.
6 from Slovenia and 6 from Croatia.
They are individuals who already work within and outside of organizations,
they have some kind of background in independent culture.
I'm here through the NMCB project, doing my training.
I'm trying to see what it takes to organize a festival of this type.
The Dozen worked on identifying problems in a community
and quick art actions.
One of them is Anonymous Stamp...
The other are definitely moss graffiti.
Eco graffiti are ecological because you use natural materials.
You use moss which grows everywhere.
You use milk, beer, water, and just mix these ingredients...
You get a consistent mass that sticks well to the wall.
Finally, when the graffiti starts to grow, it's not only eye pleasing,
but also eco-friendly because there are no chemicals in the base you put on the wall.
I'm Maja.
We're doing a moss graffiti intervention.
We wrote "Prekmurje,
first eco province". That's it.
Trans-border cooperation brought us to Slovenia,
but also to Plymouth in Great Britain.
The visit to Plymouth is a study visit where we went to see
how transdisciplinarity is studied at Universities
through art and technology.
We met with postdocs
who work on their postdoctoral researches.
Together with them we developed
our methods and principles for the NMCB.
In Varazdinske Toplice we film
an abandoned building of the former farming cooperative Sloga.
The bulls and barns were here, with former abattoir, offices and the butcher's shop.
It's been deserted for about 20 years.
We want to explore the issue of abandoned public spaces
that were once lively and operational,
from factories to cultural spaces.
Searching for space, we decided to create our own.
Our guest from Holland helped us with that, Japp from Fab Lab.
Mobile Art Laboratory came from the idea of the Free Festival 2011
when we talked about a lack of space for presentation,
or inadequate space for multipurpose multimedia presentation.
From the very beginning I've been taking part in the creation,
when we put the whole project on paper
and worked on plans and technical drafts.
In about a year, this idea grew into a virtual construction of the MAL
comprised of a container.
You can put it on a square or in a park, it's multipurpose.
It can be used as an art gallery,
but if you open the front side, it can function as a screening room.
Culture seeks ways to attract audience.
In Cakovec it was integrated into public space.
There already is a certain audience in Cakovec. We can't say
that the people don't want culture, or that they're not interested in it.
They really want to use their spare time for something different
from everyday life, a spectacle.
At the opening of the ACT Festival 2012 we did a performance
in which we sawed up an armchair in two as a symbol of conformism.
The whole event was titled Deconstructing conformism.
Contemporary tendencies in art aim
to connect different disciplines.
That's called transdisciplinarity.
That's exactly what we did in the NMCB project.
We didn't have pre-set notions of how to solve issues of culture in a small town.
Instead, we looked into the problem, mapped locations,
set up a team of 12 people engaged in a wide area of artistic activity,
photographers, multimedia artists, anthropologists, actors etc.,
who did programs
to improve the state of culture in the community.
At the EEIII Festival which took place in May of 2012
at the ACT center in Cakovec, we had girls from Chile.
Their organization is called Chimbalab.
They have a beautiful workshop and create various products.
Among them is a portable radio powered by a potato.
In the last two years, through the NMCB project,
the most important was networking and creating a group of people
that will continue to work together even after the project ends.
I think that's the best thing of all,
that the team doesn't fall apart after the project,
but that those who wish to keep working together stay on.
The New Media Cross-Border project is carried out by the ACT association from Cakovec,
KIBLA from Maribor, ONEJ from Murska Sobota, the Youth Association V.U.K. from Varazdin,
within the Operational program IPA Slovenia-Croatia 2007-2013
aimed at creating a dynamic trans-border area with strong interactions
between developers and interested parties from both sides of the border
in the area of new media culture, transdisciplinary art,
sustainable development and new models of shared creation.
This is mainly a revolution within ourselves, a revolution of individualism.
A revolution of community. A revolution of everything.
We're all in the same melting-pot
and we can put all these tools we've acquired through NMCB to good use.
Views expressed in this film don't necessarily reflect those of our sponsors.