Golem

Gallery of the Belgrade Cultural Center, 2003

October Salon, Belgrade 2003

Museum of Literature, Sarajevo, 2004

La Corte Arte Contemporanea, Florence, 2004

Siena Art Institute, 2011


go.lem n [Yiddish goylem, fr. Heb golem shapeless mass] (1897) 1: an artificial human being in Hebrew folklore endowed with life 2: automaton

In the Yugoslav wars (1991-1999) the problem of imposed identification led to a particular form of idolatry in which none of the traditional or civic values were spared from revaluation. The creation of an imaginary golem, of the national language and geography, took place as a mythic re-design of the national being: in the rhetorical discourse, specially in one so filled with patriotic and historical references, the national state was often compared to an enormous anthropometric form, of which the range of mountains was the back-bone, the rivers were veins and arteries, while the significant historical and religious locations were the heart. In this case, greatness was needed in order to enclose an entire country in a unique body, instinct and reason, and therefore in a unique, common and equally divided guilt. It's interesting to note that this rather archaic reasoning was efficiently carried forward through electronic media and therefore was part of an essentially technological and partly interactive process, the result of which was the forming - through language - of the images of greatness and of the union between the earth and the body.

Credits (original version):


video and music: Dejan Atanackovic

photography: Krista Steinhauer

additional animation: Oscar Antino

baritone: Massimo Naccarato

figure modelling: Marko Ladjusic

Golem Project

video frames

Noncorpi (Golem)

performance at the Siena Art Institute, with Luca di Volo, Eleonora Tancredi, Mauro de Lillo

December 10, 2011