The Man of Transition in Mass-Media Society (Case Serbia)

Zemlje tranzicije danas, zajedno s ekonomskom i političkom, doživljavaju i »medijsku« transformaciju, točnije izravnu transformaciju u mas-medijsko postmoderno društvo, u kome su svi važniji socijalni odnosi posredovani medijima. Ove transformacije predstavljaju nužnost što ju nameću kapitalistički privredni sustav i demokratski poredak koji se u ovim društvima uspostavljaju. One također donose i kulturne i psihološke promjene: televizija postaje ključni faktor porodičnog i društvenog života; potrošnja, moda i kult tijela, zajedno sa sadržajima popularne i populističke lokalne kulture, preko masovnih medija stižu do masa novopečenih potrošača, dok se značajne političke i socijalne nepravde, nejednakosti i sukobi neutraliziraju i prikazuju kao razlike u »životnim stilovima«, što je tipično i za zapadnu mas-medijsku kulturu. Ovo će izlaganje razmotriti skorašnje primjere srpsko-bosanskog Velikog brata, srpsku tabloidnu štampu i izbor za pjesmu Eurovizije, u pokušaju da bolje razumije ulogu domaćih i stranih medija u procesima fragmentacije stabilnih društvenih identiteta, kulturne globalizacije i političkih manipulacija.Together with an economic and political transformation, transitional societies today are subjects to an ongoing transformation of mass media, i.e. they are experiencing a direct transformation into a postmodern society, in which all more important social relations are massmedialized. These transformations represent a necessity of capitalist economy and democratic political order which are being established. They also bring about cultural and psychological changes: TV becomes a key factor of family and social life, consumption, fashion and body cult together with popular and local populist culture contents are introduced by mass-media to the masses of new consumers, and significant political and social inequalities, differences and clashes are neutralized and interpreted as differences only in ‘lifestyles’, as is typical of Western societies’ media culture. The exposition will look upon recent examples of Serbian-Bosnian Big Brother. Serbian tabloids and Eurovision song contest in an attempt to clarify the role of media in fragmentation of social identities, cultural globalization and local media manipulations with political backgrounds

The Hidden Artist: The Work of Vojin Voja Mitrović in the History of Photography

Značaj Vojina Voje Mitrovića (1937., Foča) za istoriju fotografije otkriven je široj javnosti, između ostalog i zahvaljujući dokumentarnom filmu Umetnik iz senke autora Milorada Đokića i Jakova Kronje, snimanom između Beograda i Pariza od 2010. do 2012. godine. Majstor crno-bele fotografije i foto-laborant, Voja Mitrović, ostao je u drugom planu istorije fotografskog medijuma upravo zbog činjenice da nikada nije ostvario sopstveni opus, ili bar ne onakav kakvim ga uvažavaju zvanični tokovi istorije vizuelnih umetnosti. Vezujući svoju delatnost za jednu od najuticajnijih svetskih foto-laboratorija, Picto, sa sedištem u Parizu, koju je 1950. osnovao jedan od pionira fotografije, emigrant iz Nemačke Pierre Gassmann, Mitrović je od 1964. do 1997. sarađivao sa priznatim svetskim fotografima i foto-žurnalistima među kojima se ističu članovi uticajnog udruženja MAGNUM, koji su svoje fotografije razvijali, retuširali i izrađivali u laboratoriji Picto, poput Henrija Cartier-Bressona, Sebastiãa Ribeira Salgada, Josefa Koudelke, Renéa Burria, itd. Ukoliko se fotografija shvati kao uramljivanje stvarnosti okvirom (frejmom), onda uokviravanje sa isticanjem tačno određenog dela zbivanja za Mitrovića predstavlja jedan od ključnih segmenata njegovog stvaralačkog čina. Izrađujući veliki broj fotografija Henrija Cartier- Bressona čije je kopije umetnik i lično potpisao, Mitrović je posredno učestvovao u stvaranju i jačanju aukcijskog tržišta autorskih fotografija, nastalog sedamdesetih i osamdesetih godina 20. veka u Sjedinjenim Američkim Državama. U ovom tekstu će se, s obzirom na Mitrovićevu praksu, razmatrati odnos zanata, tehnologije reprodukcije slike i umetničkog dela, razlike između analogne i digitalne fotografije, ali i istražiti složene veze koje se razvijaju između Mitrovićeve zanatske veštine i umetničke senzibilnosti koje mogu promeniti smisao i uticati na osnovno značenje finalne fotografije.The significance of Vojin Voja Mitrović (1937, Foča) for the history of photography has been discovered by the wider public mostly due to the documentary Umetnik iz senke [The Hidden Artist] by Milorad Djokić and Jakov Kronja, shot in Belgrade and Paris from 2010 to 2012. One of the greatest printers of black and white photography, Voja Mitrović has remained in the “footnotes” of the history of photography because he never created his opus, at least not in the sense that would be recognised by the official standards of the history of visual arts. Mitrović worked in one of the world’s most influential photo laboratories Picto, based in Paris and founded in 1950 by German emigrant Pierre Gassmann, one of the pioneers of photography. Between 1964 and 1997, Mitrović collaborated with world-renowned photographers and photojournalists, members of the prominent MAGNUM agency such as Henri Cartier-Bresson, Sebastião Ribeiro Salgado, Josef Koudelka, René Burri, who developed, retouched and printed their works in the Picto laboratory. If photography can be defined as the framing of reality, then framing a particularly chosen segment of an event represents for Mitrović one of the key aspects of his creative act. By printing a great number of Henry Cartier-Bresson’s photographs, whose copies were personally signed by the artist, Voja indirectly participated in the creation and strengthening of the auction market of authorial photography in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s. Relying on the testimonies of Vojin Mitrović, and his friends, associates and colleagues who considered his advice invaluable, this paper examines Mitrović’s practice with regard to the relations between the craft and the technological reproduction of image, concerning the differences between analogue and digital photography. It also explores the complex connections evolving between Mitrović’s craftsmanship and his artistic sensibility that usually changed the meaning of the final photograph and affected the starting point of the work. This paper also illuminates the details of professional and personal ties that developed between Vojin Mitrović, Henri Cartier-Bresson and Josef Koudelka. They printed the photographs for their thematic and retrospective exhibitions, but also for numerous catalogues and monographs, as well as for publications that remained the only permanent trace of ephemeral displays, after which the artworks were stored in museum collections and became inaccessible to the public. In that sense, Henri Cartier-Bresson especially appreciated Mitrović’s artistic skill, stating that he made photographs with one finger, while Voja did it with all ten. Numerous film directors have recognized Mitrović’s photographic competence. Among them was American painter, photographer and author David Lynch, who worked closely with Voja during the production of his collage photo series Small Stories. In this interesting cycle, that explores the boundaries between different media (painting, photography, film) Mitrović was challenged for the first time to print the analogue photographs in which Lynch digitally intervened in the preparation phase. Believing that the most creative period for the development of photography was between 1960 and 2000, Mitrović stayed faithful to gelatine silver prints, remaining sceptical about the new digital era in which men would be replaced by machines. Even though a large number of his own photographs comment and critically examine the reality around us, Mitrović’s photographic opus has stayed unknown to the wider public. On the other hand, precisely because he emphasized that he would never be as good a photographer as he was a printer, Vojin Mitrović has undoubtedly left a deep mark on the history of photography, meaning not only the history of great authors and their oeuvres but also a history in which numerous “invisible” protagonists, who should now get the recognition they deserve, once played a significant role

The Man of Transition in Mass-Media Society (Case Serbia)

Zemlje tranzicije danas, zajedno s ekonomskom i političkom, doživljavaju i »medijsku« transformaciju, točnije izravnu transformaciju u mas-medijsko postmoderno društvo, u kome su svi važniji socijalni odnosi posredovani medijima. Ove transformacije predstavljaju nužnost što ju nameću kapitalistički privredni sustav i demokratski poredak koji se u ovim društvima uspostavljaju. One također donose i kulturne i psihološke promjene: televizija postaje ključni faktor porodičnog i društvenog života; potrošnja, moda i kult tijela, zajedno sa sadržajima popularne i populističke lokalne kulture, preko masovnih medija stižu do masa novopečenih potrošača, dok se značajne političke i socijalne nepravde, nejednakosti i sukobi neutraliziraju i prikazuju kao razlike u »životnim stilovima«, što je tipično i za zapadnu mas-medijsku kulturu. Ovo će izlaganje razmotriti skorašnje primjere srpsko-bosanskog Velikog brata, srpsku tabloidnu štampu i izbor za pjesmu Eurovizije, u pokušaju da bolje razumije ulogu domaćih i stranih medija u procesima fragmentacije stabilnih društvenih identiteta, kulturne globalizacije i političkih manipulacija.Together with an economic and political transformation, transitional societies today are subjects to an ongoing transformation of mass media, i.e. they are experiencing a direct transformation into a postmodern society, in which all more important social relations are massmedialized. These transformations represent a necessity of capitalist economy and democratic political order which are being established. They also bring about cultural and psychological changes: TV becomes a key factor of family and social life, consumption, fashion and body cult together with popular and local populist culture contents are introduced by mass-media to the masses of new consumers, and significant political and social inequalities, differences and clashes are neutralized and interpreted as differences only in ‘lifestyles’, as is typical of Western societies’ media culture. The exposition will look upon recent examples of Serbian-Bosnian Big Brother. Serbian tabloids and Eurovision song contest in an attempt to clarify the role of media in fragmentation of social identities, cultural globalization and local media manipulations with political backgrounds

"Social horror": A critical analysis of ideological and poetic function of the motive of victim in the contemporary Serbian film

This paper analyses achievements of Serbian cinematography after 2000, which narrative strategies and visual aesthetics are focused on the issues of violence and victims in the context of social despair, post-communist transition and ongoing global value crisis. Films made by Mladen Đorđević Life and Death of a Porn Gang (2009), Srđan Spasojević A Serbian Movie (2010), and Marko Novaković Menagerie (2012) integrate these complex characteristics of disintegration of Serbian community and dysfunctional state system into their cinematic poetics. These films present examples of radical film aesthetics, which, through strategies of making things unusual, and the influence of underground, pornography and horror on the realistic drama, speak about permanently traumatised Serbian society. They directly connect collective political state and the domain of personal, family, intimate and sexual, controversially relying on the images and narratives of gender misogyny and the violence it produces and its victims. The paper critically approaches these issues from the gender- feminist perspective

Mechanism of 1,2-hydride shift in some carbocations involved in steroid biosynthesis

The mechanism of 1,2-hydride shift in protosteryl C(20) cation (1A) and in dammarenyl C(20) cation (2A) was investigated by the semi-empirical AM1 method and ab initio quantum Chemical calculations (HF/3-21G level). Stationary points 1A/1B and 2A/2B, and the corresponding transition hydrido-bridged structures 1TS and 2TS were located on the energy surface. Process 1A→1B turned out to be energetically more favorable than process 2A→2B by ca. 9 kcal mol-1, mostly due to the unfavorable steric repulsive interaction between the methyl group at C(14) and the β-oriented side chain at C(17) in 1A and the lack of CC-hyperconjugative stabilization in 1A. The exothermicity of processes 1A→1B and 2A→2B was increased by subsequent introduction of substituents (H, Me, i-Pr, and t-Bu) at C(14). The more pronounced trend in 1A→1B proves that the origin of the relative stability of 1B comes from the steric interactions in 1A. Introduction of the halogen atom (F, Cl, and Br), due to its -I effect and relatively small size, changed the direction of the equilibrium 1AY/1BY, and 1AY was found to be by ca. 3 kcal mol-1 more stable than 1BY