by Nadija Mustapić
2024
Spatial audio/video/text installation
This is a multi-channel installation composed of previously produced video and audio channels originally made for other installations’ purposes, which were now adapted, completed with textual elements, conjoined and produced into a new whole titled “Site of Impact”.
The two videos (The Threat is There, 2015, 5.1 surround sound, and Here and There, 2019, stereo sound) are used to form a 2-video-channel and 8-audio-channel installation with 6 vertical banners with text in Croatian and English language (double-sided print on tarpaulin, 290 cm x 135 cm). Artificial fog is incorporated in the installation environment.
From a text about the installation by Katarina Podobnik:
“Communicating through a non-linear and fragmented narrative, and using the symbolism of the collective unconscious, the exhibition creates an experience in the viewer that transcends individual reception and perception, revealing deeper layers of collective consciousness as well as the interconnection of past, present, and potential future spatio-temporal realities.
As a processual artistic installation, “Site of Impact” was created by merging two temporally separate but conceptually linked video works, as well as intertwining their textual, verbal, and sound elements into a scenographic-exhibition concept. The first work, “The Threat Is There”, was filmed during the artist’s residency in the USA, on the coastal area of Marin Headlands north of San Francisco—once a military zone, now part of the Golden Gate National Park, where, during the Cold War, underground bunkers were used to store nuclear and missile weapons. The moving images of the second work, “Here and There”, were filmed on the Baltic Sea when Nadija Mustapić participated in the Saari Residency in Finland, where the idea of connecting these two separate concepts into a unified artistic project began to take shape. The new narrative structure, both in terms of meaning and space, was further modified and articulated through vertical banners with authorial textual prompts in Croatian and English, where each represents a subject that, from its own perspective, manipulates the words “there” and “here” to discuss themes of freedom, belonging, and change. The visual-cognitive experience is accompanied by an auditory one—the circular sound of a helicopter, followed by wind, sirens, bells, human voices, the rustling of paddles, a boat, and water—all working to connect fragments of the impression of a coastal landscape from the former military base and the distant Baltic maritime horizon. The multisensory experience is further enriched by the physical presence of the untactile component of fog, which, spreading through the gallery space, immediately evokes a range of affective experiences in the visitor, primarily feelings of isolation, melancholy, mystery, and transience. In this sense, the element of fog is used by Mustapić as a filter to sharpen the senses in the experience of space, preventing perceptual automatism, while simultaneously placing and displacing the visitor within the artistic environment.
On a visual-sensory level, the connection between the starting points of “Site of Impact”—interwoven video works acting as meaning counterparts—is manifested in the depiction of a foggy horizon of the seascape, evoking the atmosphere of the mystical, the indistinguishable, and ultimately the unknown and distant, in a post-apocalyptic scenario. Calling forth a sense of ambivalence in the viewer, the fog that covers the horizon of the depicted landscapes imposes itself as a semantic marker of indeterminacy and mystery, simultaneously hiding and revealing the projected spaces. The symbolism of fog is deepened by the element of water, an explicit archetype of the subliminal and the unknown, reflecting the depth of the psyche and repressed aspects of the human personality. This foggy horizon, which evokes a sense of liminality and ambivalence in the viewer, can also be interpreted through the photography theory of Roland Barthes, the French literary theorist and philosopher. To formulate the essential characteristic that gives photography its “essence,” Barthes introduces the concepts of studium and punctum. While studium refers to the general—cultural, political, and intellectual context that shapes the perception of the image, punctum refers to the elusive and intuitive, especially emotional, moment that suddenly breaks through the former framework and deeply and personally impacts the viewer. In the context of Mustapić’s artistic exploration, it is precisely the fog that represents the punctum of “Site of Impact”, inviting visitors to confront what is both near and far, both present and unattainable.
On the other hand, aside from the temporal discontinuity, the key difference between the united artistic projects lies in the perception of space, that is, the relation between the observed and the observer. In this sense, the first video offers the perspective of a protagonist from a static observation post facing the open ocean, evoking a sense of control and a retrospective glance at the past. In contrast, the second video offers a view from a floating boat towards land, symbolizing movement through uncertainty toward a more stable and certain future. This relation can also be considered through the phenomenology of perception by the French philosopher Maurice Merleau-Ponty, according to whom space is not interpreted as a physical framework, but as a phenomenon that shapes itself through experience, perception, and the relationship of the subject to the world surrounding it. In the same way, the crux of the project “Site of Impact” is woven precisely in the dichotomy of the words “here” and “there” as linguistic markers of points in space, the interpretation of which is formed in relation to the subject of the viewer, depending on the broader context and perspective from which they approach.
If we contextualize this particular narrative within the framework of the global, shaped by the unscrupulous policies of ruling elites, marked by war, migration, inequalities in resource distribution, ecological disasters, and the crisis of belonging, “Site of Impact” by Nadija Mustapić serves as a pragmatic matrix of fragmented parts of what is inevitably “here” and something that could be “there.” Although experimental and critical in its attempt, Mustapić’s artistic project ultimately abandons the utopian projection of social equality and ultimate freedom. Instead of conflict, “Site of Impact” becomes a point of reasoning for all those present, as well as for those displaced and distant—some “other” spaces. In this complex web of collective challenges, the current exhibition by Nadija Mustapić raises questions about the limits of safety and freedom, reconsidering our place between the known “here” and the uncertain “there.” Quoting the artist’s textual prompt: “Here, the ultimate goal is safety. And freedom probably needs to be redefined. The word freedom is shrinking more and more. The words safety and freedom have come into conflict, and here we define ourselves through self-protection.”