Even Walter Benjamin in the early thirties of the last century, in his famous essay Work of art in the age of technical reproduction, when he spoke of the aura of the piece of art to describe the difference between the work and its reproduction, wondered about the destiny of the work of art in modern age when it’s associated to the sense metaphorically expressed in the phrase "loss of aura". Term aura, according to Benjamin, actually emphasizes destined connection of work of art and the place it comes from-work has always topological nature, implanted in its external context. This functional relation is described by Boris Goys as topology of aura because aura signifies exactly the difference between live context of the work of art and its technical extension which hasn’t got its own place or context. To have place or the context means to posses all the joys and traumas of the identity and distinctiveness which are equally joint and individual. Identity is actually, as well as the "ideology of autonomy" withal, result of centerline of whirls of different "subjective and objective" tendencies and interests, and that anchorage is reliance of the identity. Relating to the Lancan’s thesis about the significance of the picture of the body in structure of subject’s identity, that incentive picture, in case of young artist Mladen Miljanovic(1981), is the body of military complex in transition-as particular space of "barracks Vrbas" in Banja Luka, where Miljanovic graduated six months school for reserve officers; its precise contextual localization is his work , thereat adding dominant communication channel space-sign.

Guided by the one of creators of theoretical interpretation of art, semiotic Umberto Eco, who united phenomenological and structural approaches to work of art in analyzing conditions of its creation (in primary concept of "opened work", 1958), with full right we ask the question: what is "clutch" presenting communicational structure transmitter-receiver, i.e. work of art-message giving us today? Maybe just nowadays we understand completely Groys’ words "the soul of work of art is not in its body", hence, his artistic language can’t be reduced only to colors and forms, but "it’s more likely that the body of work is in its aura" meaning beyond itself. Simply, it becomes "media" or "channel" of hermeneutical understanding in dialogue. However, this interpretation of discourse phenomenon as signs of post-esthetic approaches to work of art becomes post-esthetic approach of creation as well, i.e. production of art. Key role is today taken by the artistic practice where artist and observer are together interpreters. Meaning, Eco supposes that each poetics "as operational project" is at the same time "communicational project". This has become so obvious in contemporary artistic strategies that, in this age of "art after art" (Donald Kuspit), the problem of post-esthetic approach is apparently seen as consequence of nonexistence of real answer to the question what is art today.

Actually, when art in such terms converts into (everyday) experience of life that all theoretical issues of artistic transcendences or esthetic issues of pretty and ugly become irrelevant, then, contextual guidelines of cultural intercession of artistic subject’s "autonomy" in process of realizing the project become relevant, whether it is installation of the" work" or the "exhibition".

Mladen Miljanovic is sovereign in this field because he precisely recognizes the coordinates place/space, whose identity he adopted as an alibi for creative-ideological i.e., poetical approach. Narration of the place itself (former barracks, dating back to Austral- Hungarian rule, military pivot, service officer school, and today’s civil place, university campus, art academy, etc) is in service of context "exploit", whose identity has already been symbolically elaborated in last ten years.

Through Miljanovic poetics’ point of view, body of this space is the medium which he uses to deconstruct the symbolic and very precise system of "military power". Then, it’s being reconstructed as transfer in "problematization of liberal system of power and its ways in affecting individuals in modern society", whose structural paradigm is ‘artistic freedom" of an imaginative individual. That this, so called, artistic subject’s autonomy wouldn’t survive only on its metaphorical level, Miljanovic entirely embodies phenomenology of the ideological metaphor serve the army/serve the people in project I serve art. He made his own decision to voluntary perform nine months of isolation in a place of former military power literally repeating the ritual of total control over an individual up to the highest level of his physical endurance; because, this control "implies that the body is ultimate unit through which manipulation and personality transformation should be performed", says Miljanovic. In operationalization of his project using the body of scared special territory, he reverses rigid and closed of military rules of isolation to opened and public multimedia presentation of developing process of isolation. In Baudrillard’s sense, it turns into a form of spectacle, and runs as "combination of Big Brother, military service and zoo", certainly through mass media (web, TV, e-mail, video-link, newspapers…). But its factual and public reality is united in Baudrillard’s hyper reality which is additionally magnified by "school control" (the performance was on during the first year of master studies at Art Academy). This control is, of course, different in its ideological nature, but not completely, when it comes to essential nature and sense of monitoring"free development of an individual" in education. But, in this case, autonomy of artistic choice and decision "monitor what’s monitored already".

No matter how far in transition or completely changed is the ideological model of sovereign over physical boundaries (whether material of virtual entity), "problem starts when you apply ‘Free’ liberal system of power to territorially limited subject". Therefore, Miljanovic expands his field to different phenomenological fields of questioning the mechanism for forming identities. In the work Sitno (military exclamation used to stress how many days are left till "end") he begins with a strategy of everyday, unconnected visual inscriptions, on an equalized format surface, in a form of daily messages written in isolation while counting down the days of "serving" the world of art. "Countdown" is photo documentation 274 ways to look at the world (20 Oct 2006-14 July 2007), which presents confronting the performer and the space of barracks where artist’s view(who’s back is facing the observer) is used as a mean of subjective decontamination of the space burdened with past and more recent historical context.

In his work Artattack, Miljanovic uses strategy of simulation in mapping a potential route of "art terrorism" towards West with Bosnian sign. The work I framed as "secret operation" in isolation, making planes "how to achieve an exhibition in big European and world centers". According to this, part of this work is artist’s own description of discourse:"Area 1 for Artattack is possible modus of a Bosnian artist who gains exhibition. On the canvases are the motives of the galleries which maps I received by corresponding and presenting myself as an organization for promoting culture from Netherlands. Gaining maps of certain galleries, I paint a plan of work installation in the space using military symbols in expression and at the end of cycle I get in touch with galleries again and ask for an exhibition, threatening with art terrorism!" In contrast to multi media strategy used in simulating Art attack with virtual invasion in institutional gallery – art system of the world of art, Miljanovic’s simulacrum strategy in his work PAYBACK is based on striking simplicity in installing an iconic style. Installation of painter’s canvases, having on their "innocent" white surfaces pictures of weapons set on ready made inventory of wheelchair and orthopedic apparatuses found on military waste (contrasted in jet black) is what makes the invisible visible: feeling of discomfort ("something like paying the debt") towards the recent past of the space of artist’s isolation.

Position of artist is not validly neutral position: contextual code in approach dominates in strict order of strategic problematisation and its conceptualization and visualization, through communicational channel space – sign witch doesn’t strictly part context of art and context of life. In this way focus themes and forms of identities are made significantly visible to those present at local as well as wider art scene as a problem "crises of identity" in transition, but, as well as nonconceptual "search for identity" in determining difference in interpretation of East European transitional paradigm.

Sonja Briski - Uzelac

Zagreb 2006