Florica Prevenda, artist: "We will become more and more sophisticated in what in pragmatic terms is called performance" | by Oana Vasiliu | 17 Iunie 2020
Adapting to the dynamics of a market almost non-existent in Romania, but with serious landmarks abroad is an art, an art that artist Florica Prevenda acquired through her artistic vision: anticipating the future. More than twenty years ago, Florica Prevenda began to speak in her exhibitions about globalization, uniformity, virtual space and technologically mediated communication: Face without a Face (1997 - 1998), Net People (2000 - 2001), Shadows of the Present (2001 - 2004), Facebook Obsession (2015 - 2016), Ephemeris (2015 - 2016), Anonymous (2017 - 2018).
With works sold mainly in Europe and the USA, Florica Prevenda told urban.ro what this period of social restrictions meant for her.
What did isolation mean to you, as a visual artist, amid the pandemic crisis?
By profession, in general, the artist is a lonely person, so the pressure of the pandemic crisis is not felt as repressive as it could be for someone whose professional activity takes place in public space. However, the imposed isolation, the "social distance", means a restriction of freedom, a total change of way of life, this restriction becomes frustrating.
From a professional point of view, of course, I continue to carry out my professional activity as I have done so far, I mean working in my studio. In terms of events, as we all know, globally, all cultural events suffer a lot. As for me, everything that was scheduled for this year has been canceled or postponed for the future, everything is under the sign of uncertainty and I think it will take a long time until cultural activities will "return" to that normality with which we, I am used to it. However, I think many events will move to the online environment. Personally, although I recognize the importance of the online environment, I prefer the benefits of direct contact with cultural events.
You are an artist with 40 years of experience. What does online mean to you as a person? But as an artist?
Online means something that has been reached and without which you can no longer live, it is part of our daily, professional life. From a human point of view, online communication means loneliness in the community, I notice that people spend a lot of time online, whether it's work problems or socializing on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, WhatsApp platforms. Slowly, slowly, people become consumers of perpetual information, not always useful, they have neither the time nor the habit to reflect on its content, on its veracity. In general, there is that (unseen) rupture of self, of the inner wealth with which the human being is endowed, a removal of resources.
As an artist, the online phenomenon fascinated me as much as it did everyone else when I discovered its benefits, but I did it as an artist. I use the internet in everything related to the management of the profession, I know how to use everything I use professionally in marketing, communication, but also other operations strictly necessary professionally.
Looking at Net People now, at Shadows of the Present, I tell myself that I really visually synthesized the current man, I did this two decades ago. I foreshadowed it in the context of globalization generated by the internet: obsessed with planning, strategy, profit, cold, distant, lonely.
For 20 years, your exhibitions have had as their main theme the globalization and reporting of contemporary man in these times, with a focus on online addiction. How did you make this transition to the present?
After the fall of the Iron Curtain, the only thing that really interested me was to travel, to see, to have constructive dialogues with people who lived in a different type of society than the one I lived in.
The conclusion of my search for understanding the world we live in was that we are moving towards a computerized society and my mission as an artist is to synthesize those elements that shape that society and the direction it is heading.
Living in the period of rapid emergence and development of the Internet, I considered this phenomenon to be the highlight of the era, the one that will make the transition to another "world", so I started in the late '90s to imagine "Net People".
You've been talking about Net People since 2000. How do you see these Net People now?
"Net People", an anticipated metaphor of today's man. Creators, in general, are those who synthesize the era in which they live to anticipate what is to come, they have the gift of seeing beyond the present. I think, in a way, I did this, at that time there were few elements that foreshadowed what was to come, I imagined them.
Looking at Net People now, at Shadows of the Present, I tell myself that I really visually synthesized the current man, I did this two decades ago. I foreshadowed it in the context of globalization generated by the internet: obsessed with planning, strategy, profit, cold, distant, lonely.
I then continued with Facebook Obsession, Ephemeral, Anonymous, all these professional cycles being plastic metaphors that problematized the new aspects of the evolution of online civilization and that led to a socio-cultural resizing of humanity. My plastic thinking has evolved in this context.
In a note from you, tell about the conclusion of the search to understand the world we live in: “we are heading towards a computerized society and my mission as an artist is to synthesize those elements that shape the world I live in and the direction it is heading ". Where are we going?
Where are we going? I think we will continue to go "forward" in the sense that we will become more and more sophisticated in what in pragmatic terms is called performance. There is no field that has not made unimaginable leaps. We are moving towards a digitalization of everything, this will produce unimaginable transformations in the coming years, in all aspects.
You talk a lot about constructive dialogues. How do you think we will have such dialogues in the post-pandemic era?
Yes, dialogue, in general, is constructive, we get out of our ego, we listen to others, we reflect on what they say, we think about answering, we are in a human, constructive relationship. I think that the pandemic era, through its restrictions, showed us how much we lack closeness to our fellows, we all felt the frustration of isolation, the lack of human closeness given by "social distance".
I think the only good thing about the pandemic was that it gave us time for a little reflection on ourselves, on what we lack, being caught in a mad rush towards something that shines seductively in front of us. Something unseen but related to the biological, to nature, has stopped almost all of humanity. And this to remind us that we need to stop at least a little to look at ourselves and around us and see that dimension from which we are moving further and further away.
Probably in this way we were able to realize how much we lack communication beyond the "screen" and we will probably give a little more time to it from now on. In this context, we will probably pay more attention to nature and try to live in a balance assumed with it.
What does the future hold for you?
The future is always a daring projection in which the man takes risks, trying to overcome his limits. I think it is the same for me, from a certain point of view.
Nothing stops in place, humanity will move "forward", we will become more and more dependent on the computer, we will lose many of our abilities because they will be taken over by artificial intelligence. Of course, our life becomes easier because with one click we immediately solve a problem, but this ease has a price. In order not to give a pessimistic note to my vision of the future, I would like to believe that humanity will find those resources that will maintain a balance between virtual and real.
Going a long way, I began some time ago to make a reflective synthesis of what was, what is and what I think will be in the future, all in a broad professional cycle, which It will probably be ready in 2022. This project, but also another one that I have been thinking about for a very long time, will outline that part of the road that is my future.