Via Nova

The paradox of the new

Via Nova is a cycle of small-scale performances, mostly solos or duos, presented alone or in the context of group presentations. Via Nova reflects on the production of VN through the relations between creation and destruction, theory and practice, copy and original, presence and absence, value and price, etc. Via Nova draws its material from VN performances made in the period 2002-2008. In Via Nova, actions and situations are extracted from their original context (Seven Deadly Sins cycle) – Via Negativa is treated as the “text” of Via Nova, with the intention that in new contexts, new formats and new performance strategies, the fundamental questions of modern subjectivisation can be posed again and anew. The performers take the position of authors in their own right: they sign their work with their own name, give it their own title and place it in their own context.

The Via Nova project was announced back in 2002 when Via Negativa was founded. We announced it with the awareness that the logic of contemporary art production, which expects the artist to constantly produce something new, is essentially a paradox: the new is at the same time already pre-seen and predictable. On the other hand, the New, as the yet-unseen, most often produces embarrassment, discomfort or even disappointment. The New can only produce pleasure within the pre-visible, within that which anticipates it. It is at this point that the Via Nova auto-ironically risks a certain “originality, newness, novelty” of its own, pointing to this very mythical dimension of the new – only a gaze can be new, which can only recognise novelty in relation to the old, as the only point of reference of the gaze. Via Nova starts from the assumption that only in the logic of dis-assembling the “old” can enable the spectator to occupy a new position of seeing. This is the fundamental paradox of the new. It is a very old game, and it is this very game that keeps the relationship between the artist and his audience still alive – and yet nothing new.

The conceptual synthesis of the Via Nova series is the collective presentations. These are projects in which the performances of the Via Nova cycle are combined and adapted into more complex events, establishing a dialogue with the architecture of the space (theatre, museum, gallery) or with the concept of the event (exhibition, festival, symposium) we are entering. The group presentations also adopt the names of the venues or festivals in which Via Nova is presented, and in this way signify its presence through their conceptual narratives.

Concept and artistic direction
Bojan Jablanovec

Devised and performed by
Barbara Kukovec • Blaž Lukan • Bojan Jablanovec • Bojana Kunst • Boris Kadin • Gregor Zorc • Jaka Lah • Katarina Stegnar • Kristian Al Droubi • Marko Mandić • Nataša Živković • Primož Bezjak • Uroš Kaurin • Tomaž Grom

Producer
Špela Trošt

Photo and video documentation
Marcandrea Bragalini • Tone Stojko • Bojan Jablanovec

Co-producers and partners
City Museum of Ljubljana • Ex ponto Festival, Ljubljana • Museum of Contemporary Art, Zagreb • Eurokaz Festival, Zagreb • Forum Freies Theater, Düsseldorf • Kunsthalle Düsseldorf • New Territories Festival, Glasgow • Multimedia Culture Centre, Split • Mavena, Split • Crossings Festival, Maribor • Maribor Theatre Festival • Performance Studies International • Zadar snova Festival, Zadar