The complex, exciting, technically precise and socially engaged transmedia exhibition entitled "On the Edge" by the authors Gotse Nanevski and Dorian Jovanović manages to shake all the senses of the visitor.

A fascinating exhibition is set up in the challenging setting of the Two Baths at the National Gallery in Skopje. Authors Gotse Nanevski and Dorian Jovanović combine their creative and artistic interests in a multi-layered joint project.

The subject of Gotse Nanevski's artistic interests are broad interdisciplinary research in the morphology of sculpture, installation, object and large-scale sculpture, kinetics, sound, ambience, photography, performance and video art. In the project "On the edge" you can also feel the fascination with mechanics.

- Art develops and changes in parallel with the development of technology and media. Fascination with it is a legitimate act, the same as with other entities, such as nature, community, emotional life, science, space, etc. The phenomenology of mechanics is complementary to the narrative of kinetic art and is the subject of research by many authors, some of whom are extremely important in the history and theory of art.

For me, it is a deep intimate interest and curiosity for research, which is probably rooted in my childhood days. The wheel is one of the most fundamental discoveries that tectonically shifts the development of civilization and it, for one, fascinates me on an elementary level. The project "On the edge" is socio-socially engaged, and kinetics here has the role of a carrier, something like a stone wheel or a compact disc - explains Gotse Nanevski.

In addition to the complex technical performance of the presented works, each of them radiates a powerful sound that affects all the senses. The musician and researcher of ambient and electronic sounds Dorian Jovanović worked in that segment of the exhibition.

– Most of the sounds that can be heard at the exhibition are recorded specifically for the works, some are sounds of the works themselves, but there are also waves, a night environment, an urban environment, various construction and other machines, etc. However, in most cases, the sound is further processed and assembled into collages of different, and not always completely realistic and/or compatible, sounds that are used in the works and that serve as an additional dimension of expression of the visual-tangible part. Because, above all, it is about noises, ie. random sound that is the result of some physical processes, they are to a large extent associative (for the processes), but used in sound collages acquire more than one meaning and complement the visual one, but also expand the field of expression and perception. What I want to emphasize is that in addition to recording, sound processing and editing are a significant part of the process that contributes to these works. This is not something new, the sound design is a significant and specially elaborated process in the film, but used in this context it gets a special width and freedom. How to work on a non-narrative, non-linear, abstract film - points out Dorian Jovanovic.

The curator of the exhibition, which will be on display in Cifte Hamam until September 27, is Dr. Ana Frangovska, who points out that "On the edge" is "an engaged contextual reaction to the socio-political chaos that we live every day since we are a country in transition. He also deals with daily political issues, but in the first place is the sociological aspect, interpersonal relations, the genetic code of the 'small' or 'big' man, ways of living... Nanevski and Jovanović, in fact, implement social constructivism, which is used in sociology and according to which reality is not innate but socially constructed through language, symbols and shared meanings. Hence, through the project 'On the edge', they construct, deconstruct or reconstruct social realities. They question or critique these constructed realities, highlighting the ways in which social norms and values ​​are shaped."

(The text was published in "Cultural Press" number 247, in the printed edition of the newspaper "Sloboden Pechat" on 14-15.09.2024)