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2 every great proposition has an equally great opposition and the world is polarized more than ever on a global level. As Anticipatory Design / Art Scientists, we can put up what John Cage calls our “antennae’s to the future” and present to the world alternate visions, counter to what is being fed through our media daily. It is an exciting time, it is a dangerous time, certainly unpredictable but we can anticipate and prepare ourselves. As we witnessed with Belgrade twenty years ago, dramatic shifts can happen very quickly but regardless of how dark it can get, there are those who are brave enough to hold up the light and show that the majority are hopeful of making this world a better place for all sentient beings and especially the youth who will inherit this planet. Young artists: hope for the future
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Victoria Vesna in collaboration with nanoscience pioneer James Gimzewski; “Zero@wavefunction”, 2002, within “Nano”, lecture, Princes Ljubica Palace
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Victoria Vesna, “Nano”, lecture, Princes Ljubica Palace
Growing up with a father who was a diplomat for Ex-Yugoslavia, I was bounced around from Washington D.C. to Belgrade, to Jakarta to New York city by the time I was twelve. At each location I was taught a different version of World War II history and quickly realised that these were stories told from different global and political perspectives. Having had awful math and science teachers, I became an artist and entered the Academy of Fine Arts in Belgrade quite young (17). After three years of beaux arts style schooling while being surrounded by a class of all men much older than me, I decided to go back to NY and form a band. For a period of five years, I rejected the traditional art world and embarked on a DIY education in technology, collaboration and audience
interaction although there was not much support for the uncharted path I was taking. When I returned to Belgrade to finish my degree, I met Biljana Tomić who helped me understand that I never stopped doing art and quickly became my mentor, outside of academic boundaries. The Student Cultural Centre in the late 1980’s was booming with artists from around the world visiting and what was particular about the curation of Biljana Tomić was her insistence of promoting work of young artists like myself at the time, and inviting established artists to help support this effort. The excitement of the new era was so high that no one would have ever predicted the carnage that would come and put a full stop on the amazing creative energy. Even when the dark curtain fell on Belgrade and the border walls came up, Biljana Tomić and Dobrila Denegri decided to light the candle of hope and bring young artists together to shine a light into the future. I was eager and honoured to participate in this initiative and brought to Belgrade my colleague Erkki Huhtamo along with students in the UCLA department of Design Media Arts - Jihyun Kim, Christopher Leary and Jacob Tonski in 2007; Gil Kuno in 2008, Johanna Reed and Megan Daalder in 2010. All are now mature active artists and this experience meant a lot to them – it opened up a whole new world that is not possible without the experience and direct contact with their peers from around the world. Nothing can take place of “Real Presence” gathering of many young artists from around the world – this gives us all hope for the future now.
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