Infra-red [2015-2016]
‘Infra-red’ has been created by photographing fragments of promotional leaflets of the ‘Srpska napredna stranka’ political party. The black-and-white photographs were created using infra-red film which records light below the visible part of the spectrum. This special film is used in forensics, medicine, the military, and in different scientific fields. Due to the specific properties of this material, photographs show stains and imperfections that are not visible to the naked eye. These impurities are actually the result of the printing process and the characteristics of the paper on which they were printed.
In Serbia, there is a large body of evidence in favor of Louis Althusser’s thesis that the Ideological State Apparatus can survive the dramatic political events of a complete state power takeover. Socialist Yugoslavia, with all its positive and negative consequences, was the last paradigm of political life in Serbia. Almost all political events since Slobodan Milosevic’s rise to power in 1989 can be cumulatively recognised in the phenomenon of ‘Srpska napredna stranka’, a party formed out of a mutation of the political patterns created after this time. In this sense, ‘Infra-red’ suggests not only something that comes after the “red” (colloquially) socialist regime, but also a new political model for which this symbol is a corresponding sign. The instituted post-Yugoslavia dilettantism and the political success that comes with it are summarised in this paradoxical symbol, which is itself a misinterpretation of the flag of Serbia. [MV]