| dc.description.abstract | In 1992, the NSK State in Time was constituted as an artistic response to the newly developing nation state of Slovenia. In 2020, the art project counts more than sixteen-thousand followers, who go by the name of ‘NSK citizens’. This extraordinary number of followers forms the motive for the research question of this thesis: In what way does the social body of citizens of the NSK State in Time influence its original position as an art project, primarily focused on criticizing the idea of a (national) state? This question is answered in four different chapters, in which various cultural theories are consulted to analyze the State in Time’s position as an artwork.
The first chapter elaborates on the historical context of the State in Time. The NSK State emerged in a turbulent political age, in the midst of a dissolving Yugoslavia. The initial intentions with which the artwork was developed will be clarified on the basis of this chapter. The following chapters each compare a cultural theoretical framework to elements of the NSK State in Time and its citizens, in order to define the role of these citizens in the total mechanism of the artwork. Respectively, the second chapter will argue that by mimicking a state structure, the NSK State takes part in attempting to bring art closer to life praxis. The text Theory of the Avant-Garde (1984) by Peter Bürger is used as an evaluation of the State in Time in the traditional discussion on the disjunction of art and life praxis. Thereafter, the mirror concept as explained in Michel Foucault’s Of Other Spaces (1966) is used as an analogy to the NSK State. The mirror helps to explain why the position of the NSK State as a spiritual concept, that only occasionally materializes, grants its appeal to so many individuals. Finally, the fourth chapter uses the concept of the ‘social interstice’ (a space of social relations which suggests possibilities for exchanges other than those that prevail in the system), as coined by Nicolas Bourriaud, to argue that the citizens did not divert the NSK State from its artistic purpose. Instead, by defining the NSK State as a social interstice, the NSK citizens are observed as important part of the initial art project.
At the end of this research, it is concluded that the NSK citizens did not avert the NSK State from its initial artistic intentions. Instead, they added a new dimension to the total artwork. The NSK citizens changed the State in Time from a static artifact, criticizing their own Slovenian context, into a transnational artwork that appeals to a broad discussion on the concept of the nation-state. The NSK citizens, forming a social body, have become a significant part of the total artwork whilst they simultaneously act as co-artists of the NSK State in Time. | |
