Artists: Conny Blom, Suzana Brborović, BridA/Tom Kerševan, Sendi Mango, Jurij Pavlica, Lana Čmajčanin, Boštjan Drinovec, Milan Erič, Forensic Architecture – Forensic Oceanography / Charles Heller in Lorenzo Pezzani,  Barbora Kleinhamplová, Michael Takeo Magruder, Mladen Miljanović, Armina Pilav, Ana Dana Beroš, Rafaela Dražić, Matija Kralj, Miodrag Gladović, Mauro Sirotnjak, Claudia Robles-Angel, Zoran Todorović, Iva Tratnik, Tadej Vindiš, Salvatore Vitale, YoHa / Graham Harwood and Matsuko Yokokoji 

Curated by Aleksandra Kostič, Živa Kleindienst and Peter Tomaž Dobrila

The title of the exhibition Tense Present calls attention to the critical importance of the 'here and now', in a time when it is increasingly popular to be selling the future, which is nothing but escapism into the ever unattainable tomorrow, or reminiscing about the past, as a form of nostalgia for the bygone, for the memory of better, or worse, times. The exhibition focuses on unveiling the structure systems, the  invisible, virtual and relation processes of social categorization, and by analyzing the material space and infrastructure, Tense Present seeks to accentuate the topicality of the space and time we live in.

The conceptual groundwork for the exhibition is determined by two key notions: infrastructure, and mapping. In this context, infrastructure is understood not only in terms of physical structure and the built, material space, utilitarian objects and the like, but above all as the organizational levers and processes, which condition our everyday reality. Systems of telecommunication, security, health care, education, culture and other institutionalized systems, maintain and accelerate the flow of global capital. Infrastructure, therefore, is a means of steering the flow of global production, exploitation of natural resources, work, knowledge production and exchange of information, while at the same time these processes are used to identify, determine, categorize and discipline the individual and the mass. Infrastructure is therefore defined beyond the scope of a neutral and efficient functioning of logistic systems – as a set of geopolitical power relations, antagonisms, ways of managing the collective and as a multitude of internalized individual and collective routines and practices. Nevertheless, there is no way of getting around a basic definition of infrastructure, which is in fact a synonym for technological progress and a symbol of social and technological progress, as well as economic and political inequalities.

Selected authors share more than just a conceptual framework, within which they position various conceptual discourses; they are joined by a distinctly interdisciplinary methodological approach and formal presentation. Mapping, i.e., establishing relations between individual actors and elements, is a strategy observed in all the exhibiting authors: from a cartographic mapping of territorial borders and border regimes, through visual and archive analyses of the architectural metamorphosis of conflict zones, militarization of the state, the pharmaceutical industry, research institutes for robotics, databases, systems of online surveillance and the disintegration of the welfare state, to fine art analyses of the material and the abstract.

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