Vuk Ćosić ( sr-cyr, Вук Ћосић; born 31 July 1966) is a

Slovenia Slovenia ( ; sl, Slovenija ), officially the Republic of Slovenia (Slovene: , abbr.: ''RS''), is a country in Central Europe. It is bordered by Italy to the west, Austria to the north, Hungary to the northeast, Croatia to the southeast, an ...

n contemporary artist associated with the

net.art net.art refers to a group of artists who have worked in the medium of Internet art since 1994. Some of the early adopters and main members of this movement include Vuk Ćosić, Jodi.org, Alexei Shulgin, Olia Lialina, Heath Bunting, Daniel Gar ...

movement. Active in politics, literature and art, Ćosić has exhibited, published, and been active since 1994. He is well known for his challenging, ground-breaking work as a pioneer in the field of

. His constantly evolving oeuvre is characterized by an interesting mix of philosophical, political, and conceptual network-related issues on the one hand, and an innovative feeling for contemporary urban and underground aesthetics on the other. One of the pioneers of net.art, Ćosić became deeply interested in ASCII code during a long period of research (1996–2001) on low-tech aesthetics, the economy, ecology and archaeology of the media, on the intersections between text and

computer code A computer is a machine that can be programmed to carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations ( computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as programs. These pr ...

, on the use of spaces in information, its fluid nature and infinite convertibility. Out of this came History of Art for the Blind, ''ASCII Unreal'' (an

art game An art game (or arthouse game) is a work of interactive new media digital software art as well as a member of the "art game" subgenre of the serious video game. The term "art game" was first used academically in 2002 and it has come to be un ...

), ASCII Camera, ASCII Architecture, Deep ASCII and ASCII History of Moving Images, a history of the cinema converted into text format. He is a co-founder of Nettime, Syndicate, 7-11, and Ljubljana Digital Media Lab. The most notable venues, among many others, include Videotage,

Hong Kong Hong Kong ( (US) or (UK); , ), officially the Hong Kong Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (abbr. Hong Kong SAR or HKSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China on the eastern Pearl River Delta i ...

; Media Artlab,

Tel Aviv Tel Aviv-Yafo ( he, תֵּל־אָבִיב-יָפוֹ, translit=Tēl-ʾĀvīv-Yāfō ; ar, تَلّ أَبِيب – يَافَا, translit=Tall ʾAbīb-Yāfā, links=no), often referred to as just Tel Aviv, is the most populous city in the ...

;

Venice Venice ( ; it, Venezia ; vec, Venesia or ) is a city in northeastern Italy and the capital of the Veneto region. It is built on a group of 118 small islands that are separated by canals and linked by over 400 bridges. The isla ...

Biennial; MIT Medialab; Walker Center,

Minneapolis Minneapolis () is the largest city in Minnesota, United States, and the county seat of Hennepin County. The city is abundant in water, with thirteen lakes, wetlands, the Mississippi River, creeks and waterfalls. Minneapolis has its origins ...

; Postmasters,

NYC New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

; Kunsthalle,

Vienna en, Viennese , iso_code = AT-9 , registration_plate = W , postal_code_type = Postal code , postal_code = , timezone = CET , utc_offset = +1 , timezone_DST ...

; LAMoCA,

Los Angeles Los Angeles ( ; es, Los Ángeles, link=no , ), often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, largest city in the U.S. state, state of California and the List of United States cities by population, sec ...

; ICA,

London London is the capital and List of urban areas in the United Kingdom, largest city of England and the United Kingdom, with a population of just under 9 million. It stands on the River Thames in south-east England at the head of a estuary dow ...

and

Beaubourg The Centre Pompidou (), more fully the Centre national d'art et de culture Georges-Pompidou ( en, National Georges Pompidou Centre of Art and Culture), also known as the Pompidou Centre in English, is a complex building in the Beaubourg area of ...

Paris Paris () is the Capital city, capital and List of communes in France with over 20,000 inhabitants, most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), ma ...

Art

Ćosić uses ASCII characters (American Standard Code for Information Interchange) to form images or videos. He created his own software to convert the pixels from still and moving images into ASCII, and he has also experimented with audio and camera movement being transcribed through ASCII. Short sentences or paragraphs relevant to his work are often briefly summarized through few fragments of text in ASCII form. Ćosić has put together a retrospective of some of his net.art, including various images from History of Art For Airports. Ćosić borrowed both iconic and lesser known images, reducing them to resemble the kind of

pictograms A pictogram, also called a pictogramme, pictograph, or simply picto, and in computer usage an icon, is a graphic symbol that conveys its meaning through its pictorial resemblance to a physical object. Pictographs are often used in writing and g ...

found on lavatory doors. The sources of many of the images are instantly recognizable, such as Cézanne's Card Players and Warhol's Campbell's Soup. Some of his more notable works were made from scenes from classic films including ASCII History of Moving Images in 1999, portraying a scene from Alfred Hitchcock's film Psycho. Another depicting a scene from the pornographic movie Deep Throat, remade as Deep ASCII. Ćosić had made a series of short animated sequences form various films and TV series going from Star Trek to King Kong, while in addition, constructing photographs of classical art such as Venus, Lascaux, and more. The major focus into classical mediums indicates Ćosić's possible interest in the historical aspects of art. The show also includes a new work, File Extinguisher, which Ćosić describes as "a project that fixes the web by providing the surfer with a totally free file deleting service. All you need to do is upload your file and we'll delete it for you, completely." The ASCII History of Art for the Blind is a webpage that describes selected images verbally by reading each of the ASCII characters that make up the image through an automatic recordings. War is a collection of files stored with images taken in front of a TV screen in 1999, recording the events that took place during the

NATO bombing of Yugoslavia The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) carried out an aerial bombing campaign against the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia during the Kosovo War. The air strikes lasted from 24 March 1999 to 10 June 1999. The bombings continued until an a ...

Personal exhibitions and projects

1991

*Basta, Dubrovnik (with Krpan, Martek, Opalić, Talent, Tolj), Dubrovnik

1992

*Ljubljana, Flat Jurij Krpan *Trieste, Galeria Juliet *Total Egal, St. Lambrecht (with Antun Maračič & Nenad Dančuo)

1994

*Hollywood, Ljubljana, Ljubljana Castle

1995

*Le Coco Fruitwear (Urbanaria - Part Two, with Matej Andraž Vogrinčič), Ljubljana, Prešernov trg > (Trabakula), Rijeka, Dubrovnik, Split > London, ICA > (Biennale dei Giovani Artisti dell'Europa e del Mediterraneo), Torino

1996

*Velodrome Online (with Luka Frelih & Strip Core, The Drug of the Natyon),

Copenhagen Copenhagen ( or .; da, København ) is the capital and most populous city of Denmark, with a proper population of around 815.000 in the last quarter of 2022; and some 1.370,000 in the urban area; and the wider Copenhagen metropolitan ar ...

, Electronic Cafe International

1997

*Raziskovalni Inštitut za Geo-umetniško statistiko Republike Slovenije: Public presentation of the mobile etalon of the Slovene Mediterranean metre (with Alenka Pirman & Irena Wölle), Piran, Tartinijev trg > Biennale dei Giovani Artisti dell'Europa e del Mediterraneo, Torino *A Day in the Life of a Net.artist (Media in Media), Ljubljana, Mestna galerija

1998

*History of Art for the Airports, Tank, No. 1, London *Lascaux, venus, st. sebastien, pieta, Cézanne, duchamp, malevich, warhol, lumiere bros, star trek, king kong, haiku, jodi, bunting, shoulgin

1998

*ASCII History of Moving Art, Ćosić's work presents seven short clips from well-known sources that recall points when film, television, and video were finding their voices as the new media of their day

2010

*As part of the 2010 celebrations in

Ljubljana Ljubljana (also known by other historical names) is the capital and largest city of Slovenia. It is the country's cultural, educational, economic, political and administrative center. During antiquity, a Roman city called Emona stood in the are ...

for having been nominated by UNESCO as the tenth

World Book Capital The World Book Capital (WBC) is an initiative of UNESCO which recognises cities for promoting books and fostering reading for a year starting on April 23rd, World Book and Copyright Day. Cities designated as UNESCO World Book Capital carry out act ...

, Ćosić held a book burning exhibit and lecture at the Trubar Literature House in homage to the anti-protestant book burning in the same city, in 1598 (where books by the protestant reformer

Primož Trubar Primož Trubar or Primus Truber () (1508 – 28 June 1586) was a Slovene Protestant Reformer of the Lutheran tradition, mostly known as the author of the first Slovene language printed book, the founder and the first superintendent of the Pro ...

, after whom the venue is named, were presumably burned). The exhibit also alluded to the book burning event by Hebrew and Yiddish writer Ka-Tzetnik, who in 1993 stole a rare copy of his prewar book of poetry from the National Library of Israel, purportedly burnt it, and sent the remains back to the library with instructions to burn them, like all that was dear to him had burned in the Auschwitz crematoria.

Videography

*DEEP ASCII *TTYvideo software, java, VHS, Vuk Ćosić,

Amsterdam Amsterdam ( , , , lit. ''The Dam on the River Amstel'') is the capital and most populous city of the Netherlands, with The Hague being the seat of government. It has a population of 907,976 within the city proper, 1,558,755 in the urban ar ...

-Ljubljana 1998, 55' Script & Dir Vuk Ćosić Programming Luka Frelih *C'Mon Babe Light My Fire 03.15 *Purple Haze 02.46 *California Dreamin 02.50 *Venus 03.16 *My Generation 03.08 *Should I Stay or Should I Go 03.50

video de musica

*ASciikk *TTYvideo software, java, VHS, Vuk Ćosić, Amsterdam-Ljubljana 1998, 55' *Script & Dir Vuk Ćosić *Programming Luka Frelih *6 video clips by the

Russian Russian(s) refers to anything related to Russia, including: *Russians (, ''russkiye''), an ethnic group of the East Slavic peoples, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries *Rossiyane (), Russian language term for all citizens and peo ...

cyberpunk artist Alexei Shoulgin in the moving ASCII, published at a web site as well as on a VinylVideoTM record.

Ćosić's Net.Art

File Extinguisher

War

This is unreal

ascii history of art for the blind

ascii history of moving images

net.art per se

References

New Media Art· Mark Tribe and Reena Jana. * "Vuk Ćosić." Artforum International 40.7 (Mar. 2002): 40. Academic Search Premier. EBSCO. ibrary name ity tate abbreviation 29 Apr. 2008

. * Vuk COSIC. http://www.videodokument.org/cosic/cosic.htm; accessdate=2008-05-05. author= Barbara

External links

History of art for airports

Official website

Sources

Araújo, Sandra. (2010). Deconstructing Vuk Ćosić: Data as Language. Art & Education. Rinehard, Richard. (2011). "Vuk Ćosić: ASCII History of Moving Images" University of California, Berkeley Art Museum & Pacific Film Archive. {{DEFAULTSORT:Cosic, Vuk 1966 births Net.artists Slovenian contemporary artists Artists from Belgrade Artists from Ljubljana Living people Slovenian people of Serbian descent