Keit’s work, titled Absolute resemblance cannot be guaranteed is made up of several elements which were created in reaction to the local environment in the centre of Nova Gorica. During a research visit earlier this year, Keit spent time immersed in the urban environment of the town; located in the town’s centre is Bevk Square, which serves as a commercial and social centre, as well as a venue for community and children’s activites. The square was refurbished in 2014, taking into consideration the development of the city in the last decades, but still retains some of the Soviet architectural aesthetic fundamental to the city’s history. It is named after the Slovene writer, poet and translator France Bevk who, after the Axis invasion of Yugoslavia in April 1941, was imprisoned by the Italian occupation authorities due to his public Anti-Fascist stance. In 1943, he escaped from prison and joined the Slovene Partisans.
Upon spending time in this square, Keit became preoccupied with the webcam installed as a European Capital of Culture initiative that allows the square to be seen live from anywhere in the world. Questions around surveillance, privacy, the public domain, and personal freedoms arose, leading to the development of the new work, and its specificity to the square, questioning what it means to broadcast cultural happenings and to allow people to be unwittingly observed online.
The performative element of Absolute resemblance cannot be guaranteed consisted of a durational walk across the surveilled square in clothing that was hand-printed specifically to blend in with the stone tiling of the square, forming an urban anti-surveillance camouflage and making the artist barely visible on the webcam. The movement of the walk was so slow as to be almost imperceptible, meaning that passersby were confronted by a strange figure immersed in a private, durational trajectory across the square’s diagonal axis. On the back of the artist’s head was a QR code which people could access and which linked to the webcam’s live-stream, thus further closing the loop between reality and online surveillance.
The material parts of of the work consist of the actual suit work by the artist hung from a custom-made hanger, and a photograph of the QR code on the artist’s head, as well as a video recording of the performance as it was recorded on the webcam. They are being shown as part of the multi-site biennale at the city’s Xcentre nearby.
Keit Bonnici is a transdisciplinary artist and designer, who has studied and lived in Malta, London and Vienna. His conceptually driven and practice-based research is embedded in speculative thinking and an assemblage of designing objects, interventions and narratives that question the social, political and cultural territories of space.
The Biennale is part of the official programme of GO! 2025 – European Capital of Culture Nova Gorica – Gorizia. It is an initiative by the network Biennale des jeunes créateurs de l’Europe et de la Méditerranée (BJCEM), which has a long history of supporting young artists from all over the Mediterranean, and Slovenian arts organisation Škuc Association.
Keit is among around 90 other participating young artists; selected through an open call and a rigorous selection process by biennale curators Tia Čiček and Misal Adnan Yıldız. His participation is facilitated by Unfinished Art Space and funded by Arts Council Malta.
Article provided by Margerita Pulè
More information on the Go!25 Mediterranea20 Young Artists Biennale
