Lenka Đorojević & Matej Stupica: Mon-O-Matic

Installation, 2015

Mon-O-Matic (original title Monomat) is a model of a manufacturing plant without a control centre. It is a prototype that represents the social modes of production. Mon-O-Matic is based on the “research” cognitive precariate’s labour practices, which are characterized by the repetition of automatized motion as part of the human - machine relationship. The model is based on “infinite” multiplication of the manufacturing plant, including all of the entailed office equipment (a computer screen, a table, a chair, writing implements, a book, a computer mouse & keyboard etc).

The precisely coordinated operation of all of the auxiliary levels mimics the principles of action within contemporary societies and the absurdity of the environment within which the communication capitalism is reproduced. The gradual self-destruction of individual work stations also represents the condition of permanent technical innovation within fordism and postfordism which demand a radical consumption of energy. The machinery’s sound, which is one of Mon-O-Matic’s fundamental elements, is the result of programmed motion of technical prosthesis and metallic constructs, within which the cognitive precariate is entailed. Mon-O-Matic is thus a model that exposes the socio-technical system of mass consumerism as the principal factor of social construction of reality.

Electronics & programming: Brane Ždralo

Technical implementation: Martin Lovšin Schintr

Production: Projekt Atol Institute & Association Ljudmila, Ljubljana

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Lenka Đorojević, born in Nikšić, Montenegro in 1982 and based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, as a visual artist stems from the field of graphic arts, which can be seen in her work directly, or through the inclusion of the medium’s processes in her media installations and theatre sets. In 2008 she graduated from the Academy of Fine Arts in Trebinje, Bosnia and Herzegovina and went on to study additionally at the International Summer Academy in Salzburg, Austria. She received the master’s degree at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, Ljubljana in 2013 on the subject of the Graphics of regeneration; her work was a spatial graphic installation named Cube 837456-9305.00., exhibited at the Centre of Contemporary Arts - Art Salon Gallery Celje and the Alkatraz Gallery in Ljubljana. She has also completed the School for curators and critics of contemporary art, which was organized by the Center for Contemporary Arts - SCCA Ljubljana. She is a contributing author for the Culture and Humanities Editoial board at Radio Študent Ljubljana and a co-founder of the Society for Sound and Visual Art OFFTIR, which was presented at the 7th Triennial of Contemporary Arts in Slovenia.

Matej Stupica is a new media artist of the younger generation, working primarily in the field of visual art and multimedia installations. In 2014 he graduated in painting at the Faculty of Arts in Ljubljana with the work Escape from Alcatraz. During a 3-month student exchange program in the academic year 2010/2011 he attended classes in Jiří Černický’s painting studio at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague. With solo and group projects, interventions and exhibitions he participates in Slovenia and abroad. As of 2006 he is an illustrator for the newspaper Dnevnik’s Saturday supplement, Objektiv. His illustrations were exhibited at the 8th and the 11th Slovenian Biennial of Illustration, where he received the Hinko Smrekar Recognition and a special commendation of the jury for his newspaper illustration. He received the Academy of Fine Arts in Ljubljana Award in 2009 for outstanding artistic achievements for his work in the field of visual arts, and the Student’s Prešeren Award for painting in 2011. With his last projects he was, inter alia, a part of the 7th Triennial of Contemporary Art U3. Born in 1987, he lives and works in Ljubljana.

Web page: www.matejstupica.net