Bartaku: BorFil
Multimedia project and Open Studios, 2016
The mining truck is one of the icons of the industrial era. A provocative and sublime piece of matter-moving matter that seems to be moving a planet a day… An orange-yellow master in inciting antagonistic feelings, from embodied amazement and experienced machine beauty to ecological panic and fears for the planet.
This piece of technology is now losing its intimate touch with humans, since soon, hands will no longer touch its wheel and feet will no longer push the pedals. Instead, fingers will slide over distant glass screens to operate the ‘telautomatonic truck’*. The truck-to-wire image originated during a presentation by Jelisaveta Vukelić (Faculty of Philosophy, Univ. Of Belgrade) on the ecological problems of Serbia and ‘the potential for creative use of the negative legacy of industrial pollution’. It was part of a mini-conference organized by KC Grad on October 1, 2014, as part of the ‘Frontiers in Retreat’ project.
*See Tesla, N. “The Problem of Increasing Human Energy. - With Special Reference to the Harnessing of the Sun's Energy.” The Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 60.2 (June 1900): Pp. 26-29 – Bartaku
BorFil: Memorial to the Mining Truck & Its Driver is a project Bartaku realised during his residency at the Cultural Front GRAD, Serbia. It was presented at BorFil Open Studio on February 15–19, 2016 at KC GRAD. Bartaku describes his project as "speculations on the transformation of a mining truck into a single wire". It was inspired and materialised by “The Embedded Artistic Research at Kolubara 60sqkm Open Pit Mine and - office for next 70 years and War Memorial”, Lazarevac/Kolubara, Serbia.
BorFil was created in collaboration with Dusko Jelen (photography/Gif edit), and Ana Anakijev and her mother (production; fur to truck cutting).
