The assignment they were responding to (to critically review and portray the “false Balkan idols”), comes through unsurprisingly as a series of obfuscated personal references ranging from politics to popular culture, loosely articulated and ambiguous opinions generally lacking any clear position other than representing something outside of the status quo. I hope the initiators will not take it too much to heart if I say that the results are far from the public criticism and accountability intended, that they put forward in the initial text describing the project. What the following pages present though (at least in my opinion) is a wordless declaration – but a declaration nevertheless – of independence. An independence that can only arise from a renewed communality that such projects as A3.Format and many others sprouting in the region recently have helped to establish – or at least within the closed enclave of a growing population of graphic designers. On first sight their agendas and output seem to be mostly useless and even incomprehensible (nevertheless often highly likable) to the general public but at the same time also useless for any kind of economic or ideological player to capitalize on the independent channels, outlets and networks they have been busy setting up.
However, they seem to be sure that they are not necessarily interested in “designing for the Country” (whichever that country might be), “visualizing business strategies”, “service and information design”, “creative industries”, “creative capitals” or whatever other transient linguistic inventions that mostly non-designers use to describe their ideas of regaining and reaffirming design`s social function and worthiness.

What really seems to be at stake here is a renewed interest in community, participation and collaboration. It is by all standards not a very loud or clearly political agenda but political nevertheless and the bonds between this amorphous stranded bunch are stronger than the divisions and the lack of terms or discourse available to describe them. Timely enough, the title of a recent design conference in Amsterdam, “I don’t know where I’m going but I want to be THERE” rings true.

Žiga Testen

Throughout the 20th century there were groups that constantly resisted the culture of
mass consumption. Particular cultural phenomenon happened with the punk movement
in the 1970s. DIY ethics of the 70’s produced a fanzine culture with detailed instructions
on how to do some practical things, for example, how to make your own t-shirts,
posters, zines, books, prepare food, etc.. In the last decade this phenomenon extended
into computer science, or hacker culture, DIY Electronics and “open source” practices.

People need to create. Buying what they like is just not sufficient. DIY ethics encourage
the principle of self-reliance. It promotes the idea that every man should learn to do
more than he or she thought possible.

29 young designers and artists from Serbia, Croatia and Hungary gathered on 15th
and 16th January, 2011, for the first collaborative A3.Format DIY workshop in the
Youth Center CK13 in Novi Sad. In these two days, the authors from Zagreb, Split,
Osijek, Budapest, Kecskemét, Szeged, Hódmezővásárhely, Subotica, Sremska
Mitrovica, Belgrade and Novi Sad exchanged experiences and met up with free
software alternatives in the field of graphic design. Works that have emerged during
this collaboration were inspired by the popular quotes on self-education, ethics,
independence and self-reliance. Our goal was to show how much we are able to
achieve in two days, using the free alternatives.

The theme of A3.Format “Do it Yourself” workshop was focused on research and
exchange of knowledge in the field of graphic design through open-source software and
cloud computing. In addition, a special space was left for manual drafting, photography
and all manual interventions. The end result of the workshop is a collection of
motivational A3 posters, in the shape of “A3.Format: DIY Vol.06″ publication in printed
and online form.

Implementation of the project was supported by Ministry of Youth and Sports of the
Republic of Serbia.

What we are paying attention to today is the issue of Roma language, as the cornerstone of their culture and
identity. Apart from communication, one of key functions of a language is integration within a social group,
people, or community. Roma language is one of many with no tradition of written form. Until recently, it did
not exist in this form at all, but was passed on exclusively by speaking, which contributed to the absence of a
standard Roma language, which exist merely as a group of more or less diverse dialects. This situation with
Roma language reflected on this people’s political, economic and cultural marginalization. They were able
to survive only in small groups, which brought about geographical and social heterogeneousness present
today. As a result, a system of more or less compatible dialects was developed, not helping creation of unity
among Roma people. Without solving this issue as the key element of Roma national being, we can not
significantly change their current unfavorable situation. Education, residence and healthcare of Roma people
are closely connected to their cultural issues, and alongside that, Roma language as a means of personal
needs articulation.

A3. Format’s “Illustrated Roma Alphabet Book” presents our modest contribution to a grand venture of Roma
people inclusion in the territory of Republic of Serbia. Abc Book is the result of cooperation between A3.
Format and Kulturanova association, with the help of Roma classes in elementary schools Dositej Obradovic
and Jozef Atila from Novi Sad, as well as those in elementary school Josif Marinkovic from Novi Becej. We
were greatly assisted by their teachers Aleksandra Nikolic and Ivica Miskovic. The sentences are products
of spontaneous students’ associations to each of 39 letters in extended Roma alphabet. Zj and Sj sound
combinations have for the first time been included in Roma Abc Book, being that they belong to Banat
subdialect of Gurbet dialect.

Our intention was to move the issue of Roma inclusion in Serbia to an international plain, which we
succeeded by choosing artists who illustrated all 39 letters and the cover of Roma Abc Book. 43 people
participated in creation of this book, 28 of whom are from Serbia, and 15 from Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia,
Bosnia and Herzegovina, Austria, Germany and the USA. Even though based on free associations of
Roma children, this Abc Book is meant to be read by both Roma and non-Roma population, as the main
contributors in the process of cultural communication and integration of Roma people in all forms of social
life.

This project was supported by the Ministry of Human and Minority Rights of Republic of Serbia.

А3.Format group

Participants: Biskoteka, Milica Pantelić, Nenad Trifunović, Hristina Papadopulos, Manja Lekić, Super Timor, Katarina Šoškić, Mirko Žarković, Miroslav Dajč, Filip Stamenković, Ivana Radmanovac, Aleksandar Topić, Filip Bojović, Nikola Bradonjić, Natalija Ninkov, Blind Artist, Nina Zeljković, Vladimir Radinović, Klara Šimunović, Filip Pomykalo “Myka Polo”, Matija Drozdek, Mario Mataković, Vjeko Sumić, Gergő Szivonya, Perta Klára Szabó, Katalin Halácsi, Paul Mutant, Ábel Lakatos, Berta Soós.

“GRIFON Prize is awarded for the eighth time, confirming it’s vitality and sensibility for new authors, recognazing this year a young and talented team of A3.Format. This group from Novi Sad, founded by Filip Bojović, is primarily characterized by it’s openness, desire for research and freshness. They use the academic knowledge of classical art language as a basis on which boldly and creatively develop their sense of modern graphical expression.”

“A3.Format primarily characterizes personal sensibility and openness to the public, the issues that young people, the most vulnerable part of society, encounter in everyday life and work. As a result, their involvement includes creative approach in the broadest possible sense, not limited to the world of graphic design. They are powerful in expression and not afraid to go into research of different styles and influences resulting in exceptional solutions.”

Special thanks goes to all authors who have contributed to the quality of this publication and won us GRIFON, this award is yours!!! New publications and awards will follow shortly, we will contact you soon! Artists: Dušan Đorđević, Rajko Ivanišević, Miladin Miletić, Lina Kovačević, Matija Drozdek, Katarina Šoškic, Ana Kraš, Mihail Mihaylov, Bardhi Haliti, Ian Griffith, Nenad Ponjević, Miodrag Manojlović, Miha Artnak, Žiga Aljaž, Žiga Artnak, Branislav Milošević, Jovan Mikonjić, Milica Pantelić, Željko Lončar, Bratislav Milenković, Marko Gole, Nenad Trifunović, Lazar Bodroža, Jovan Obradović, Mirko Žarković, Marko Rakić & Filip Bojović.

Feedback Letter Box by Bogdanka Poznanović,
magazine Adresa by Vujica Rešin-Tucić and
A3.Format by Filip Bojović

The best curatorial practice is its negative – very absence of curatorial practice. If
that would be the case, art work would be left to direct confrontation with the audience and its contemplation over the work. In tradition of modern art, work which is put out of contextualization and narrating around it is left to the audience, which prefer to observe it as singled-out and de-contextualized, therefore recognizing its intrinsic value. That kind of works are those usually circulating on the art market
[and mass media], which is by Marx extreme example of “commodity fetishism”, meaning that is the place where belief in intrinsic value of objects is expressed. The work of curator consists of re-presentation of an art piece in the exhibiting context. However, s/he doesn’t have “the power” to transform non-art to art by the very act of exhibiting, which stays the privilege of artists. Institutional critique directed to museums and curatorial practices regarded that art work is relativised by mediation and representation. Due to Boris Groys, curator is seen as someone who stands in between art work and audience, someone who manipulates perception and takes
away the power from the audience. Ambivalence of curatorial practice is evident and it isn’t rare, partly because of understanding of the ambivalence, in their work, artists are dealing with direct communication with the other artists.

Feedback Letter Box by Bogdanka Poznanović, magazine Adresa [Address] by Vujica Rešin-Tucić [with co-editor Dušan Bjelić] and A3.Format by Filip Bojović [with co-authorship of Vladimir Manovski and A3.Format group] are three pieces presented in this issue of Gallery Nova newspapers, in selection of the New Media Center_kuda.org from Novi Sad. Although they have been created in different time frames, common to those three pieces is that they are possible only through collaboration of artist[s]- initiators with the other artists.

In the case of the Feedback Letter Box, on the invitation of Bogdanka Poznanović, one of the important mail-art artists from former Yugoslavia and broader, artists from different parts of the world were sending photos of their mail boxes or their art intervention to the mail box at the address of Bogdanka’s studio “DT 20”. In the case of the magazine Adresa, on the invitation of Vujica Rešin-Tucić, artists, mostly from the territory of former Yugoslavia, were sending their art interventions in A4 format
which subsequently became separate pages of the magazine, while in the A3.Format project, on the invitation of Filip Bojović, artists and designers are sending their own interventions in and on the A3 format, on the blog and web site of the project. Each of those three pieces is joined with text which contextualizes them additionally: intervention of the Novi Sad based artist Slavko Bogdanović under the title Feedback Letter-Box, Personal Communication in Continue or Global Village of Bogdanka Poznanović written in the period between 1975 and 1983, thence, the letter of Vujica Rešin-Tucić from 1976 which initiated, so called, first private magazine Adresa, and the text which contextualizes A3.Format project,
conceived by intervention of the author of this text on the initial one written by Filip Bojović and Vladimir Manovski. Those three works are creating alternative
environments for information exchange and communication of content, which would be impossible to reach through official chanells, according to Vujica Rešin-Tucić. Of course, different time period of creation of those works implicates different contexts of reading and understanding of those “alternative environments”. Feedback Letter Box and the magazine Adresa were initiated and developed in the period between 1973 and 1976, in the time when, on the cultural scene in Novi Sad, “closure” of that same cultural space strongly reflected. At the beginning of 1970s, removing of liberal streams from the Communist Party of Yugoslavia caused significant ideological interventions, also in the field of culture. In Novi Sad scene, editorial boards of important magazines were deposed, as well as the organizational structure of The Youth Tribune, several art works were censored and few artists were sentenced to imprisonment by reason of their critical work. Just before these events, at the end of 1960s and beginning of 1970s, neo-avantgarde artists from Novi Sad were utmost acting through The Youth Tribune and through several important magazines: student magazine Index, Fields, magazine in Hungarian language U`j Symposion and Student. Most of the artists from this scene were coming from the
field of literature, philosophy and sociology and some of them were members of editorial boards of those magazines, where they actively published majority of their art works and interventions. After 1973, their situation and access to those public platforms drastically changed. In the situation when official channels which enabled
artistic work were shut down, works Feedback Letter Box and the magazine Adresa are appearing and, in that sense, they are certain “alternative environments” which enabled “prolongation” of practices of artists from Novi Sad scene of that period. These works could be seen as a sort of reaction on the change in cultural policy of
that time [in that sense they are “alternative environments”], and also they could be seen as practices which are continuing and enriching insofar concept of public artistic interventions. Initiated in 2005, project A3.Format is developing and questioning possibilities of public artists and designers interventions, as to, it poses question of possibility of public space today which is fragmented, mediated and privatized and this to big extent applies to the internet itself, which this project is paying quite of attention to. Broader rifeness of technology makes the internet
accessible to the bigger number of people, which is usually understood as a synonym for openness, non-hierarchal and participative structure of
the internet. But, internet as the “public” space is overwhelmed by proprietary monopolies and strongly present mechanisms of control. Under those circumstances, by using a template, standardized format for potential intervention,
A3.Format project almost makes ironic template mode of the internet as an open, public space for eternal participation and networking. In certain sense, all three works presented here create micro-environments in existing space – denied one or again the one which offers so many possibilities – and pointing out that networking,
communication and participation are possible on the basis different then those subsistent. Three selected pieces are made by direct collaboration of artists and without that participation, those pieces wouldn’t be possible – participation is inherent to those very works. Also, through this way of communication among artists, figure of curator is avoided – artists don’t take curatorial position, but rather
position of radical “agent” which enables those works and make them visible. Still, at the end, although created on principles different then representation, those pieces are becoming “victims” of ambivalent curatorial practice for this occasion,
where the act of selection, [re-]contextualization and narration, in the same time, is relativising them, in multiple ways “abuse” them, but also makes them visible in a new way.

Branka Ćurčić, for kuda.org