International Festival
of Computer Arts

Re-theraforming

Project

Re-theraforming

  • 28th MFRU
  • Student project
Artist Lara Žagar
Re-theraforming

In Re-tereforming, the artist will design independent landscapes as mise-en-scenes of abandoned architectural remnants of the consumer age. She will place pioneering species such as algae and moss in the ecosystems to rewild the desolate and uninhabited post-apocalyptic urban ruins. She draws her installation materials from objects of today saturated with artificial materials and places them in organic matter with the potential to regenerate and grow a new and autonomous ecosystem that, unlike cities, can exist without human intervention.

The author's research resonates with contemporary ecological paradigms, although she does not directly mention philosophical concepts such as dark ecology, ecology without nature, or going wild, her thinking process and hybrid non-categorical use of artificial and organic materials expresses the practical application of these very interesting concepts, which open up a problematic approach to ecology. The author mentions the urban landscape as part of her research stream of thought, but it is not directly illustrated in her works, which we see as an advantage. She does not limit her thinking to appearances but recognises them above all in the immediate material reality of man-made materials. Her merging of the artificial and the biotic goes beyond the binary distinction between culture and nature, which is in line with contemporary ecological thought and practice. At the heart of her work is a reflection on potentiality rather than a pessimistic view of the apocalypse, which she calls prototype after ecologist Kevin Kelly. We believe that her setting is also an expression of a wildness that tends not toward an idealised image of nature, but towards the potentiality of organisms to reshape the earth (terraform) without an anthropocentric preoccupation, which we recognise as an exceptionally poetic idea.

The jury was convinced by the work submitted, especially the visual material. We are confident that the spatial layout of this project will be of interest to the public, and that the artist will present a visually very coherent work in the exhibition at Media Nox gallery.

Expert jury for the selection of the best MFRU 2022 student intermedia projects
Ida Hiršenfelder, Miha Horvat, Robertina Šebjanič, Igor Štromajer