Conversation with Berlin-based visual and performance artist Darko Dragicevic whom I’ve called over Skype to talk about his projects ‘Failure as Practice’, in which he not only explores our individual and collective relationship to failure within artistic practices, but also the broader cultural and historical definitions of value and success.
This podcast was recorded during Covid19 period of social isolation and physical distancing, a unique historic moment for the art community, and I was interested to speak with Darko about what ‘failure’ might mean to us in this particular context.
Weaved around this topic of failure is mine and Darko’s conversation about difficulty of slowing down and doing nothing; importance of empathy and thinking bigger than our personal needs; a need for art that is inclusive and collaborative and a value of which is not measured by income and finances; and why are we as society excluding elderly people, their voices and wisdom from our everyday and art practices.
TRANSCRIPT
Ira Ferris: [00:00:01] I wanted to focus this interview on a particular project of yours, called Failure as Practice, and throughout this interview we will be unpacking this concept of failure and especially the way it relates to our practice as artists. So, I wanted to start with asking you a question that will kind of reveal to me your views on failure, and the question is: What are the first three words that come to your mind when you think about failure?
Darko Dragičević: [00:00:34] Hmm... What are three words that come to my mind? .... It is funny to think of failure in such exclusive terms, because this is something that I've been exploring for quite some years now, so my understanding of failure has completely shifted. But I will try to answer your question and stay in the framework you are proposing. I would say: A lie. I think lie is failure. I would say... dissatisfaction. And... maybe selfishness.
Ira Ferris: [00:01:28] That's great, thank you. I like that you've said that it's hard to summarize this concept, especially after you have spent some time thinking of it. Let's come back to those three things you have mentioned a bit later and unpack them. But before we dig into that, I would like to get a sense of how you got into the exploration of failure in the first place. Since 2017, so for about three to four years you have been working on the project Failure as Practice, where you (together with a group of collaborators) look at the meaning and the impact of failure, or our concept of failure, on artistic practices. What inspired you to start investigating this topic? Was there a particular event in your own career or your life that prompted you to delve into that?
Darko Dragičević: [00:02:30] The project started with the encounter with Zorica Milisavljević, who manages cultural programs at the Goethe Institute in Belgrade. Our first encounter was very interesting and fruitful, in terms of exchange between two human beings who only just met. There was an idea, a proposal to do something together. My link with Goethe Institute was already there to a certain degree, given that I am originally from Belgrade but live in Berlin. So, the idea was to propose a certain project, a frame within which the young artists, who were at that time connected to Goethe Institute through a group called 'City Gorilla', could participate. Basically, there was already this frame, a yearly call-out let's say, for artists or people working in artistic context, to come and work with these group (i.e. with City Gorilla). So, after long hours of talks and discussions, just simply as exchanges without making any particular plans, we have realized that we were talking more and more about failure and that word was occurring more and more in our conversation, without us really putting a finger on it. And eventually, after these talks, it occurred to us: what about if we do something with the notion of failure! And we were looking at it, at that stage, just broadly. Like, what would that really mean in terms of possibility to share something with young people? So our conversations stopped there. And then when I left, I started to reflect more about myself and my own practices that were, until that point, dealing a lot with the notion of failure, even though I was not necessarily aware of it. For instance, there was one particular work called 'Ideal Week' that I did in 2009 that was kind of like an everyday diary, written from Monday to Sunday while I was living in New York and was dealing with obsessive compulsiveness. So, I made very clear structure from the moment I would wake up on Monday till the moment I would go to sleep on Sunday. I was exploring; what would be the things that I have to do at the exact time, in exact order, in order to feel that I'm achieving or that I had achieved something? And these did not have to do only with what I was doing in terms of my artistic practice, but also with what I was doing privately: what I was eating; how many steps I made every day; how many times I would... I was counting everything, basically. And sometimes I was achieving this ideal week but many times I was failing. And I started having certain reactions to this failing. And these reactions were also physical reactions. I noticed it had an effect on the way I was breathing, etc. And these reactions were accelerating as the time was passing by and I was really trapped inside of this. So, this work was a very extreme notion of failure that was so much present in my everyday life. So, diving inside this topic made me reflect on what was already so much present in my practice.
Ira Ferris: [00:06:44] And what made you want to delve into this exercise of 'an ideal week' in the first place? This concept of ideal that is bound to fail, in a way. Were you exploring the failure from the beginning? Were you assuming that you might actually fail if you set up this kind of rigid task?
Darko Dragičević: [00:07:08] No, not at all. You know, I had moved away from Belgrade when I was 19 years old. First I moved to Milan, where I spent some years studying. Then from Milan, I moved to New York. From New York, I came to Berlin. So, I was always moving to West. And I come from southeast Europe that was affected by very particular radical political situation in 90s. So, I had to learn how to function and coexist in these new places that already had established artistic markets, rules and systems within which artists function. For me, this was all completely unknown for many, many years. I just had to learn how to operate in them. And every time I moved to a new country, there were always slight differences. For example, America was very radical in that sense. As you know, in America, especially in New York, it is all about the self. It's about a very strong ego. It is all about being extremely successful, being busy and not having time for anything else; continuously talking about yourself and proclaiming your own successes. So everybody is busy, everybody's working. And then for someone who came from Europe, especially for someone who came from Serbia, it was very much… what do I have to do in order to feel that I'm achieving something and that I am successful in those terms of recognition? So, this was my way of understanding how I should function on daily basis, in order to achieve certain goals. It became a trap after some time, but I genuinely thought this was a recipe for success. So, my original intention was not to create something that would lead to failure but to actually create something that will lead to success. But while doing that, which was also a very naive approach, I’ve realized, after a very long time, that I was failing rather than being successful.
Ira Ferris: [00:09:30] And so, from that understanding you started, as you've said, developing this project with Zorica, and part of the project is to actually involve local artists, professional artists from various fields who gather together, over a few days, in something that you call 'labs' which culminate in a series of site-specific interventions. Could you tell me what does 'Failure as Practice' look like in a bit more detail?
Darko Dragičević: [00:10:02] So, 'Failure as Practice' started in 2017, first as a lecture during which I have tried to talk about certain artists and their own practices in which they work with notion of failure. So from there I have joined the forces with the Goethe Institute in Belgrade and a group of young artists that I have mentioned before, City Gorilla. And then we worked together on the first workshop that I was leading and that was based on my concepts. In this workshop, I was creating a space where failure can be shared; notion of failure can be shared between participants. Many times, what happens with failure is that it stays on more theoretical level where there is a lot of writing and talking about it. So, I was curious to create practices where failure can be shared between people so that it is not about an individual body continuously reflecting on oneself and staying on a very subjective and personal level, but that these experiences can be given and taken away from one another and be shared. And how can this sharing expand further in order to create something bigger that could at certain point become something that I call the ‘collective body’. Collective body in this sense can be established and created only when there is a mutual trust between participants. And mutual trust is something that is created over certain period of time and that is taken with quite some attention and delicacy and also nourishment. So through these practices, first of all, I wanted to create situations where there is no hierarchy; that people who are participants and who come from different, mostly artistic fields do not feel superior over one another if they have more knowledge or are more experienced in certain fields but there can be, from the beginning, more neutral space where these artists can dive in together in order to create a space where vulnerability can be accessed equally from each member of the group. From this starting point, this collective body began to expand. And from one workshop in 2017, that has left some effect on people who were participating, we have decided to open these formats and share them with audience. So in 2017, in May we have opened these very vulnerable processes to the outside and we have presented these works. I mean, ... I would not even call them works because this is already a word that has very specific frame. I'm not talking here about performances or choreographies. I'm talking about processes, experiments. So we have opened these processes at their very vulnerable state to people on the outside, in the Belgrade City Museum. And from there, I think there was a certain recognition and this concept started to grow. So in 2018, there was a need to reflect on what actually happened and to work on archiving these processes, and through archive find the best ways to formulate this and share it with even wider audiences. So we have decided to continue our collaboration throughout 2018, the outcome of which would become a collection of different stages of this work. And in the beginning of 2019 we have published a book catalogue with the same title: 'Failure as Practice'.
Ira Ferris: [00:14:27] Have you, through this process of sharing the relationship to failure with others, found out that we humans are similar in the way we approach and think of failure or that there are major differences? And whether there are differences depending on the art disciplines - for instance, does a dancer think of failure differently to a photographer or an architect or ... whoever you interacted with in this process?
Darko Dragičević: [00:15:09] You know, this series of labs took place in a few different places and they were shared in different formats. So we started in Belgrade and then it continued in Berlin, and then we went to Stockholm and then also to Ljubljana. And what is interesting is to see how people who come from field of visual arts or architecture or creative writing, start to dance more; have an urge to dance while people coming from contemporary dance practices or performance tend to do that less. So, I find this symbiosis and support that is being created through these processes very interesting; where people open themselves so much and share their vulnerabilities. And there is a desire to experiment with the practices of the other involved in the group. So it is always interesting to see how much and how far participants go in exploring their own limits, unconditionally. So, that is what is mostly happening at certain stage in these labs, these workshops. But, now to go back to the first part of your question; are they very different from one another? Well, it really depends. I would say that to a certain degree they are not. And once these becomes a shared material, this realization of equality comes more and more into the picture. But of course, I think it would be also unfair to say that it always works like that. There are some views that are very particular and that are also based on various political and social contexts, or cultural or political background of each person who participates. So, of course, somebody who has different experiences of that kind is very much affected by that, in terms of how they understand failure and what failure stands for. So that also comes into picture. So, I would say yes and no.
Ira Ferris: [00:18:03] And what does failure stand for, for you personally? And did it change since you delved into this process of talking about failure with others? Because talking seems like a really important part of this practice.
Darko Dragičević: [00:18:19] Well, personally... And you know, when I was thinking about our conversation, I was thinking about how can we in these days, with everything that is happening, maintain this level of honesty. Because this project and this topic proposes exactly this field of exploration, where we can really dive in and allow ourselves to talk about many things that maybe in the first place could be too much, or very strange and quite extreme. But I think that in these radical times that we are right now experiencing, this is exactly what we need; we need to be able to talk on a personal level. Failure for me is... It is about how can I be more proactive and be more involved in everything that is happening at the moment with the humanity, society, with our planet; be more of an activist in everything that I do and create formats that connect people, because that is the only way that I think there could be a voice that has a point. I don't see any more reason why artists today should be thinking from project to project and create in order to please or satisfy institutional bodies or those who are, since forever, deciding who has a voice, who gains visibility, who leaves the mark. I think this is the time where we urgently need to come together in order to start thinking in a bigger and larger frame than our own personal needs. So, I question that a lot in my own practice and I see how my own practice is changing. I want to be in a situation to collaborate even more with different people and to expand even more and connect wider communities, through practices that do not even have to be claimed as my own but that are on this communal level. And they can still stay honest to their aim in terms of what artistic practices really are, but they can also be much more reachable to those who do not necessarily call themselves artists. That is where I see my duty right now. And maybe it sounds like a cliche because many people think like that or talk like that right now, but I'm trying to really apply that in everything I do these days, when it comes to artistic practice. And that is something where I feel that I could do even more.
Ira Ferris: [00:22:15] When you speak about this, are you trying to say that you fail if you don't do this, if you don't achieve this? That you feel like you have failed if you don't manage to create this collectivity, at this time?
Darko Dragičević: [00:22:34] Well, I think that I cannot think of myself exclusively in this way. I might be wrong, but I think that we are collectively failing. You know, just when I look around myself, I think that we are all so trapped in a system that doesn't allow for the parallel, guerrilla actions that can leave traces on certain changes that are absolutely necessary right now; not in the near future but right now. So, I think that I do fail, of course, because when I look at what's happening right now, I don't exclude myself from this entire situation. This is my own personal failure, too. So, I would say yes. But I think that this is exactly the moment where there could be more time and space to reflect and gain something from the situation that we are in right now and that after this, we can take different steps and think differently in order to protect each other, protect other species and bring back empathy, because as I said in the beginning, when I used the word selfishness, we are so focused on ourselves and we are always leaving something for close future. But I think that is very wrong. And that's why everybody should bring empathy into their own practice. And that doesn't only refer to artistic practice. There need to be different systems that involve institutional bodies and economies and politics worldwide, in order to go further and survive and bring back healthy values.
Ira Ferris: [00:25:21] I'm glad you went back to the three words that you have shared with me in the beginning. As you said, one of them was ‘selfishness’ and the other one was ‘dissatisfaction’. And, something I just picked up on, as you said” yes, we have failed; we have failed nature, we have failed sharing a planet with each other, but you were also saying that we can't be paralyzed by failure, but reflect on it. And maybe… I might be wrong, but maybe that's where this dissatisfaction comes in. So, rather than saying: "Oh, I have failed and I suck, and the world sucks and everything's bad," we need to take this as learning and make things better. Is that what you had in mind when you spoke about dissatisfaction or ...? What does dissatisfaction mean for you?
Darko Dragičević: [00:26:16] Absolutely. I think it also has to do with the current moment which is Corona virus and staying inside and continuously and endlessly talking about cancellations, delayed projects, about so many fears that are just becoming bigger and bigger. This is also time to work with myself and ask a lot of questions and think about others and support others; morally support and emotionally support. Not only thinking about myself but think about others and think about what is there when the windows to the outside open again. These are the moments when we can look beyond our weaknesses and fears and look at the different side of it and not be unhappy about it. We can look at different possibilities; how we can access, for example, artistic works that are maybe having a little break or they need to breathe or even if they are cancelled or postponed... If I am an artist, I must have capacity to look at this from different perspective and do something with it, together with others. I have capacity to reflect on it from different points of view. Some works will, of course, take a different direction. Some will maybe even gain more than their original plan, but they should not drown. And if somebody is drowning and this also refers to me, it is that collective body that can step in and we can help each other in order to create this model of support through empathy and collective trust. So, dissatisfaction is a killer to a certain degree and it is also a privilege in some way. I think that both of us, coming from a country that was once upon a time Yugoslavia, had experienced that adapting to new situations is a continuous task. We needed to think and rethink, in order to adopt ourselves to new circumstances. And once you have experience with something like that, and you learn that at certain age; I think that you can recall it and learn through that, and know that it is okay to have time to reflect, and that this is all about understanding what you can gain from it, and that it is not the end of the world; it could be much worse.
Ira Ferris: [00:29:36] This time to reflect brings me to another question that I wanted to raise because I am noticing that while on the one hand we are speaking about this time as time to slow down, as an alert and alarm from the earth to just stop, stop making things, stop constantly producing, reflect and calm down and go into the quiet space; on the other hand, I'm also seeing a new surge of some kind of pressure to keep going and to keep making and to keep participating, which on the one hand is a way to keep connecting, so I can understand that, but I sometimes feel that we fail in being able to stop. And there was one beautiful thing that one of your participants, in one of the labs in Berlin said as she was reflecting on the experience of fulfilling one of the tasks that you set for them; she said she reflected a lot on what is enough and when is it OK to stop. And she said that we fail at doing nothing, at feeling okay with not filling the time and space with action non-stop. We fail, she said, at stopping. And that just seems so poignant to me right now, so relevant to keep in mind that it is ok to just breathe, if you have a luxury and a privilege to do so.
Darko Dragičević: [00:31:13] I think that's a very good question. It's a very good observation. It is 'nothing as practice'. And, you know, that's also on my mind and is something that I've been talking about with some friends, artists - nothing as practice. I caught myself many times thinking, how much am I present. And this doesn't have to do with the moment right now. In general, I always think about future and then future comes and I again think about future. So then I started asking myself, how happy and fulfilled am I if I have worked so hard and have achieved that moment where there should be certain recognition and letting go; and I'm certainly not aware of that. I'm always in some other frame and time, where there are different setups I again need to adapt myself to. And so I'm going back again to the ideal week. And then I have started to ask myself, who actually decides that for me and not just for me, but for us altogether. And then a notion of success started to come more and more into the picture. So, you know, when we talk about failure, I bring more in question notion of success because everything that this society, this world we are living in finds successful, most of the times I really don't think is or represents success. So for me, much more problematic word is 'success', because success is mostly, if we talk about artistic context, associated with visibility, with income, money, finances. And I do have to say that that is very questionable. What is market? What is artistic market? Who are established artists and what does that also really mean? You know, that's a much more interesting question; and that's something that I think we should collectively start to discuss a bit more. And it is a very interesting moment in history cause we can see that some shifts are slowly happening but it will take ages for things to happen and to finally change. However, something is starting now and there are certain openings that could lead to more meaningful and revolutionary changes in the future. It is still at a very, very delicate state but something is changing. So, notion of failure for me has much more positive meaning in comparison to success. Success is the one I don't understand.
Ira Ferris: [00:35:24] But if we would continue to use this word 'success' to mean that we have done something well, and if we would go into the future where we could redefine what this ‘well’ is, how would you dream that we would think about what is seen as a value in our society, what is seen as success, an actual success?
Darko Dragičević: [00:35:45] Well, you know, the entire society, I think, is based on values and histories that need to be completely rethought and rewritten. There are so many stories that don't even exist in a larger and bigger narrative, and notion of success and failure comes hand-in-hand with that larger picture. And I think that in terms of the world, there is something that connects us all and that is nature. And I think that it is very clear what we need to do there. But in terms of wider understanding of communities, of countries and lands, I think that needs to be rethought big time because there is something that is established as general value that I think just really doesn't work anymore. And that can also be applied to artistic practices because art history, for example, ... well, there is the word 'history' there. You know, art history is written from so many very problematic points of view and there has to be a lot of re-questioning of that as well, and failure should be more implemented in that process because I think that history teaches us to erase what is considered to be failure while something that is considered successful stays in, stays there to be remembered. But for me, if I think who are the artists who currently have more voice and could one day be remembered as those that have marked our times, ... well, you know, that choice is not associated with purely artistic practices; there are so many factors that come into picture and they are very problematic.
Ira Ferris: [00:38:23] I'm also thinking about these times as times of great uncertainty. And more so than ever because we currently live on day to day basis and we can't plan anything. We literally cannot plan for another month. We don't know what's going to be happening. At this stage, you can't propose a project, book a date, we don't know if we will be able to fly anywhere. All these things ... And we have historically lived and been schooled in a way that champions certainties. And I was listening to this beautiful podcast with writer David Whyte, and he was talking about school systems, how they are based on applauding of those who have answers. And he said that this is actually such unnatural way of being, because we don't actually have answers to anything and we should actually learn to live in uncertainty as a natural way of being. And I was thinking of asking you if we should teach failure in schools? And if so, what values would we teach our children in order to be better equipped to deal with the word that is uncertain? I'm conscious that there are lots of children now being schooled by their parents and what seems to me the most important learning at the moment, is learning of some basic human values and ways of coping with life.
Darko Dragičević: [00:40:18] I think that teaching failure would be probably quite extreme; you know, to really specifically focus on that. But having more open spaces to make visible and approachable basic human qualities like vulnerability, shyness, restrictions of any kind; yes, there should be collective understanding for that. But I would not say that this should only be applied to schools and to teaching kids or young people. I think that this should be also shared with people who are of different ages, even with elderly people. You know, I think that one of the biggest social failures is our relation to elderly people. That's something where I feel we as society, as a world are failing big time. And you know, there are certain societies where being of a certain age is a value because you have certain knowledge and experience that you can transmit to people who are younger. But in most societies, especially in societies where I live, elderly people are simply forgotten. And I think that this is something where our society is failing a lot. And I'm asking myself why? Why is that and how can that be different and how can that be changed? And how can art do something about it as well? How can people of certain age be more involved? Because art is there to open spaces for freedom so why not also think more in these terms as well?
“How can we in these days, with everything that is happening, maintain this level of honesty? Because I think that in these radical times, this is exactly what we need. We need to be able to talk on a personal level.”
Ira Ferris: [00:43:00] From the things that you are saying, I'm getting a sense that your practice involves lots of conversations and dialogue and it makes me reflect back on what we spoke about earlier, in terms of over-production. So I feel that currently we are in some kind of time and space and age where rather than making things, we should look at connecting. And you spoke about this idea of connecting and collectivity in this particular situation we are in, and about the importance of not focusing on personal needs but thinking more empathetically. But at the same time, we are also living in this particular time when the physical spaces of gathering have been shut down and the virtual and online spaces have opened. So, one question is how are you feeling about it as an artist? How are you feeling about this momentarily transition of our practices, our ways of connecting, to this online world?
Darko Dragičević: [00:44:16] Well, I think that this is something that will be happening more and more in the future. I mean, now is quite an extreme situation and we are forced to work like this, so it is not our own choice, but I'm trying different things out and trying different possibilities of how to work with others. You know, we as artists are continuously thinking of the final product; how can we achieve something through our process, wrap it up, share it with others, have a premiere, and so on. So there is always something about product in itself. But I am much more interesting in creating spaces for sharing the process of art work, and ‘Failure as Practice’ is one of those projects. So, I'm interested in what happens with all these months, even years of research, of dialogue, of rehearsals, of writing endless texts and so on. What happens to that and how can that be accessed and shared with the audience? I think that there is a big interest from outside, from the audience to access how artists work. So to open more spaces of experimentation, of unfinished is where I see most potential, because I think that this is also going to change how we understand and perceive art in itself and could be a good way to change already existing structures in terms of what is being funded, what is being supported. So in my practice I am much more interested in these ongoing processes and how to make them accessible to others.
Ira Ferris: [00:47:21] Do you think that we will go back to face-to-face experiences, now that we have discovered that online connection is working? And you said that you feel that there will be more and more of that. Where do you see the future going in that way?
Darko Dragičević: [00:47:42] I think that the future is going in two directions. One direction will be, as you said in your question, more face to face, and this is exactly what I tried to talk about in my previous answer. I think that opening processes and experimental formats, we will open different ways of how people come together and how they discuss and talk about something together. This is exactly what is very exciting because the mode of observing artistic work will open new ways for people to talk about it and participate or try things out. And we can explore ways of implementing feedback in these exchanges, and the feedback does not have to be only verbal, it could also be through embodiment. And then there is also that other direction; a future which is more connected to digital arts. And I think that here, you know, we have a lot of artists that work with programming or with sound or digital arts, and that are spending more time in front of their computers. But even here, the notion of body plays a big role. And that is also where I see a lot of potential; how can these different fields come together? I'm at the moment working on one project that is supposed to be premiered in October in Berlin, where there will be the symbiosis of bringing programming together with the live body on stage, and what is then the role of the audience in that setup?
Ira Ferris: [00:50:02] Yeah, I think we will come to re-evaluate, or I guess we'll be reminded of the value of coming together physically because, you know, I understand what you are saying about sharing of the process and not just sharing the result but I'm kind of also feeling that we will discover that we can do even that online because the online space is currently becoming what was agora in Greek time. It's a place of gathering. We are discovering very quickly, frighteningly quickly, in my opinion, that it can replace the physical space, if we allow it to. I mean, I don't feel great about it because I do like being in actual physical contact with other bodies and not through the screen, but I guess I'm a bit anxious that this might take over, even after it's all hopefully safe and we can actually meet together. But, yes, it could also have an opposite effect. It could also increase our desire to come back and meet in one physical place and have a discussion in a real world, not in the online one.
Darko Dragičević: [00:51:21] I think that both will happen and I think that both will gain a lot from this situation. What I found very unusual is how, when we started to be locked in our apartments, there was a need to share everything online - artists in studios, artists doing choreographies, yoga classes, concerts, DJ sets, acting classes, online clubbing. It just became everything. And to certain degree, it works. And to certain, it doesn't. Sometimes it's even ridiculous and it becomes comical. Sometimes I'm even laughing seeing how far people can go. But I think this is all just now. Like maybe it's an urge. I don't know. Everybody should have their own space to express themselves how they want and I, of course, support that. But I myself don't have this urge, this instant urge to share something online, and especially because all my collaborations involve physical practices, body practices. I think that this is so crucial for what I do. And I think that being together in space, face to face, cannot be replaced with this digital touch.
Ira Ferris: [00:53:02] I share that. But I guess I'm also, like you, someone from the 80s and I'm conscious that for the new generations, people who are now fifteen or something, this will just be the norm. You know, you and I still know what something else feels like and we have nostalgia for that. But I'm wondering if we are entering some really new era and if new generations who are just going into arts will straight away just think of how to make it digital, because maybe it's just the best way to go.
Darko Dragičević: [00:54:06] Possibly. Possibly. I agree. I think that this will happen more than we can understand right now. But it also really depends on the type of artistic practice. If we talk about dancers, for example, you know, ... I work at different universities over Europe, and I work mostly in the context of contemporary dance and performative arts, and there, … this is not the case. Of course, younger dancers, the performers, they express themselves much more in a digital format than we were doing it once upon a time when we were studying but still, you know, there are still so many practices that will stay there forever and that cannot be changed, to certain degree.
Ira Ferris: [00:55:16] Coming towards the end of this conversation, and to preserve the moment we are in right now and to remember as we go into the future what we cherish about the physical connection and about being in a physical space together; I wanted to ask you, what is it that you love about the physical spaces and what is it that you would miss about it and that you want to remind yourself of, in case we do go into this digital world? Why is it important not to completely replace it with the digitalization?
Darko Dragičević: [00:56:08] I will be very honest and very simple with this answer. It is about making me feel alive. It is the strongest feeling of sharing something with someone in a studio space and working with your own body. That is where I feel most excited, most vulnerable, most brave. And most alive and excited to try things out. Feel accomplishment, but also feel failure. So that is something that cannot be replaced with anything else; that feeling of being in the space, in the studio with your own body and also with others in the same space.
[Recorded via Skype call Sydney to Berlin 27 March 2020]