Institutions, Venice
Vesko Gagović
Odyssey
Montenegro PavilionIn Odyssey, his project for the Montenegro Pavilion, Vesko Gagović aims to trigger reflections on the relationships between contingent/absolute, material/immaterial, contemplation/action. Through an apparently minimalistic set of spatial interventions, he builds an environment which associates to some of the most iconic images that have marked the history of contemporary cinematography and have become part of general culture for entire generations. He refers to Stanley Kubrick’s “2001: A Space Odyssey”, and in particular to those scenes that anticipate the existence of superior, non-human intelligence. This theme – the existence of non-human cognitive life – resonates with the questions that should be addressed with urgency right now, in these “Interesting Times”, as this year’s title of the Venice Biennial indicates. These questions comprise the role of artificial intelligence, the dominating power of technology, science becoming a new religion, the impact of human agency on our planet and the apocalyptic perspectives that may be anticipated for our era, the Anthropocene, if we keep going in the same direction.