The exhibition Algorithmia is based on a project that deals with first-person responses to the author’s changing local and familiar surroundings in a philosophically in-depth and aesthetically sophisticated manner. The starting point of the exhibition is the winning zine of the DobraVaga Gallery’s ninth international contest.
Tim Topić won over the judges with his technical execution and feeling for detail, the rawness of the product in terms of the zine’s large format itself, and the consistent use of screen printing. The zine Algorithmia reflects the author’s style and way of working – focusing on photography, playing around with contrasts, subtle, abstract images, precision and skill with the material.
Algorithmia addresses the portmanteau of arrhythmia and algorithm; at its core, it describes the discomfort with the disturbances in the perception of one’s own changing environment, more precisely the local urban areas that characterize the author’s repetitive everyday life. The author, who draws from his own experiences when dealing with perceptions, is not very interested in the consequences of change, but rather in the presence of change itself. These changes happened without the author’s knowledge or any (conscious) involvement, but despite this, they appear in his work as an obstacle to established functioning and interaction with the environment. Within the framework of his work, the author refers to the theory of gestalt emergence, understanding the aforementioned changes as the consequences of the collective will of a community, even if its individual building blocks think differently and their will is clearly different from the collective will.
In relation to arrhythmia, the algorithm is thus characterized by unevenness, an unexpected disturbance in a personal process, action or instruction that, in principle, determines an established, verified sequence of certain tasks, for example, migrating through the neighborhood, as well as the process of creating prints with the screen printing technique. The portmanteau of the two terms in the title of the exhibition combines the diametrically opposite concepts that, on the one hand, address the established order and meaning, and on the other, simultaneously demolish it in a set of unexpected disturbances. A disturbance in the layout of the exhibition, characterized by the construction scaffolding placed in the space, which directly refer to one of the original photographs of a new building in the author’s immediate surroundings, but at the same time, in the form of an unexpected disruption, interrupt free movement around the space and force the visitor to interact, adapt and rethink the constitution of the space in which they (co)exist.
Tim Topić (2002) is an artist who works primarily in the fields of photography (and related practices) and graphic design, which he studies at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design of the University of Ljubljana. He also works in the fields of graphics, spatial installations and sound. He is currently interested in the concept of memory, its contextualization and (de)construction, and gestalt theory, aspects of which he explores within smaller specific projects. He has participated in several group exhibitions in the DobraVaga Gallery, most recently the seventh edition of Fresh Fish and the MENT festival’s appointmentMENT 7.0 and 8.0 exhibitions. He won the 9th International Zine Vitrine Open Call call with the zine Algorithmia. He has been holding solo exhibitions since 2023 (Secants in DobraVaga, Vršenja at Ljubljana’s Town Hall) and successfully participates in design contests (third place at a Bank of Slovenia competition for the design of commemorative coins, special mention by the jury in the Fresh Blood category at a Plaktivat competition).
Curated by: Maša Žekš
Free admission.
8. 4.–10. 5. 2024
Organisation: Kino Šiška.
We thank Ringer d.o.o. for their collaboration and assistance on the project.
