Igor Kuduz - Photo-spam / Created Accidentally. Distributed Intentionally.

Lauba House proudly presented Bruno Pogačnik’s first solo exhibition, the site-specific installation The Magic is gone (But the Filth is still there), on December 1. As always, together with the exhibition Lauba also organizes an accompanying program which includes the artist himself, curator and a collaborator of the artist's choice. Bruno Pogačnik chose Igor Kuduz, his longtime friend and colleague, to present his project Photo-Journal.

Igor Kuduz's presentation Photo-spam / Created Accidentally. Distributed Intentionally. will take place on Tuesday, December 20 at 21:00 h.

Once, my good friend Joško Baće emailed me a photo of his huge fish catch to make me jealous of him having such a great time. As our mutual teasing is often successful, so was this one. I replied to this by sending a series of photographs from my recent trip to Tenerife. I believe that the underwater and hiking photos had the same effect as his fish catch. Of course, photo correspondence continued with new series of photographs and at some point I added few more addresses of my friends whom I thought might be interested in those photos, or that they might at least cheer them up. The number of email addresses increased from one email to the other, including the emails of acquaintances and colleagues, and soon the idea of a common “subject” of those emails was born and completely unintentionally Photo-journals came alive.

As this happened completely by accident there was no need for a complex concept. Emails were sent to randomly selected addresses from my address book, duly numbered, dated, with a subtitle and at irregular intervals. Some series of photographs had a diary-like character, while the others were arranged in a conceptual pattern or according to their content. There is no recipient who received all of the email editions of the journal. This position of an “anonymous” sender-spammer and uncalled for emails eliminated the need of a feedback. My pleasure was derived from a comfortable position of “sending from the couch” and after sending the email my interest in its destiny would end. It was exciting to “tell a story” without a direct contact, without paying attention to whether someone wanted to hear it or not. And so it went for over two years, from mid-2008. By opening a Facebook profile I decided to publish the majority of Photo-journal archives and make them available at all times. Also, I have continued to publish further journals “exposing” them to a wider audience that was completely unknown to me, what considerably changed the nature of the whole action, since until then I knew almost all the recipients of my journals personally.

Photographs in Photo-journals have no imperative or demand. They do not have to be good, technically or artistically. They do not have to have a defined visual language. They can really be whatever I desire. Anyhow, they will probably be defined by the fact that I took them and, led by some concept, put them into series. They do not need anything else. Simply, all the photographs, taken anytime and anywhere, can become a possible basis of a new email. That ultra-democratic character is maybe the biggest shift from seeing photographs as “serious” works of “high art” exhibited in galleries. It is liberating, unburdened and simply exciting…The process itself is much more important to me than the photographs. Finally, photography is here only and exclusively a medium, a primary way of sending unwanted mail, a repetitive anonymous addressing.

I would love these journal-photographs to be as anonymous as possible. Like many photographs I have receive over the years from real mail-spammers from “exotic” servers. I have always loved to receive these kinds of emails and maybe that is where the motivation for a similar action came from. Only much more uncalled for. As the whole action does not have some articulated reason, so the series of photographs do not follow some articulated code and, thus, it is irrelevant how many people will see them and what is my relation to them, if any. Receiver/observer does not know when these photographs were taken, for what reason and a great deal of biography that every photograph contains becomes annulated by their virtual appearance in an inbox or portal. The only navigation is sender’s address and, possibly, a title that does not necessarily help with the interpretation. As it usually is with spammers, their emails come and don’t come, completely unpredictable. Thus, Photo-journals go back to their domicile medium, email. True, Facebook will remain a storage server of a permanent exhibition, but the email action continues…

i.k.

Curator: Vanja Žanko
Assistant to the Curator: Mihaela Ćuk
Text Author: Igor Kuduz
Production: Lauba
PR: Vanja Žanko
Translation: Zana Šaškin
Proofreading: Susan Jakopec (Eng), Jelena Graovac (Cro)
Technical Team: Jure Strunje