The monographs Slovenska glasba 1848-1918: COBISS ID 263983616, and Slovenska glasba 1918-1991 by Darja Koter present a comprehensive and up-to-date synthesis of the history of music in Slovenia. The first monograph covers the period from the second half of the 19th century in which Slovenian national culture began to take shape, until the end of the Great War which led, due to socio-political changes, to a new turning point in the development of Slovenian music. The second monograph discusses the period after the end of the Great War, marked by the formation of Yugoslav nations’ alliance, until 1991 in which music was given a new opportunity to develop in independent Slovenia. The study is based on general, cultural and musical historiography. The author explores the history of Slovenian music in reference to key issues of Slovenian cultural history, and its co-dependence on national and socio-political movements and their impact on the development of music art in all its dimensions. The study covers with all music phenomena, such as the emergence and development of music institutions, amateur societies, professional institutions, highlighting the interdependence of creativity and interpretation. The study includes church and secular music, the phenomenon of Slovenian choirs, the development of music theatre and instrumental forms, merits of dilettantes, as well as music creativity in the era of the bourgeoisie, the music of the revolutionary period and the post-World-War-II period until 1991. It discusses individual personalities and their artistic achievements, as well as their reception by professional audience and in political circles. The achievements of Slovenian music are presented in a multicultural perspective and placed in the European culture space context. The scientific monographs upgrade the previous overview of music history in Slovenia, published fifty years ago by Dragotin Cvetko. Darja Koter received the Mantuani award (the highest recognition presented biennially by the Slovenian Musicological Society for outstanding musicological achievements) for her monographs.
COBISS.SI-ID: 265605888
A scientific monograph Studies of Slovenian modernism after 1945 comprises nine analysis studies of artistic oeuvres by selected representatives of Slovenian modernism after 1945 until a shift to postmodernism at the end of the 20th century. The selection includes artists from the field of painting: Zoran Mušič, Marij Pregelj, Ive Šubic, Vladimir Makuc, Jože Tisnikar, Janez Bernik, Zmago Jeraj, Živko Marušič and Marija Lucija Stupica. The monograph is conceived as a study of diverse artistic practices pertaining to the field of painting, including prints, drawings, illustrations, as well as collage and assemblage. By focusing on a diversity of painting techniques, the studies present a comparative analysis of different artistic approaches in Slovenian modernism of the second half of the 20th century, as well as an insight into specific artistic poetics. This indicates the possibilities of diverse methodological approaches in the analysis of artistic oeuvres. The studies in the book are arranged in the chronological order of created oeuvres. The selection presents a wide range of modernist positions ranging from a pro-Western following of trendy lyrical abstraction, existentialist figuration, Informel and pop art, to the phenomena of expressing regionalist tendencies, typical of Slovenia. This overview of typical representatives of modernism fills gap in the production of basic monographic studies in the field of Slovenian visual art of recent decades.
COBISS.SI-ID: 254685184
Employing the methods of New Historicism and empirical literary studies, Gašper Troha systematically investigates the corpus of Slovenian plays written in the 1943–1990 period, and examines them in regard to their relationship to the authorities. The research on complex relationships between drama, theatre, the authorities and the public is focused on the following issue: why did the socialist authorities allow staging of plays that criticized the authorities, and even awarded them (at festivals and elsewhere). Using Slavoj Žižek’s theses on the strengthening of social ties between the authorities and the people, the author sets up a model of a fragile balance between the aforementioned players, each of whom has completely different motivations for entering into these relationships. In addition, the scientific monograph provides a historical overview of Slovenian drama of the 2nd half of the 20th century, providing its genre typology and examining its social impact, based on empirical data on theatre audiences. The author interprets thriving playwriting of the period in reference to a general Slovenian cultural history, and to the development of European and world literature and Slovenian theatre. The scientific monograph presents a sociological analysis of Slovenian drama and theatre in the studied period, extending its conclusions in the field of literary and theatre studies, but also disseminating them to other fields of the humanities (history, sociology of culture).
COBISS.SI-ID: 85277185
A scientific monograph by the research team members lists key shifts and innovations in Slovenian performing arts since 1990 that have emerged at the intersection of various art disciplines, media and technologies, and defines them by employing the umbrella term of hybridity. The hybrid spaces of art are treated as in-between spaces, characterized by unstructured experience resulting from the revocation of rules, conventions, habits and changes in the stages of transition. They are being examined as an open territory in which heterogeneous artistic practices arrive at unpredictable connections with existing aesthetic codes, social and cultural-political circumstances and economic interests. The research includes typical examples of hybridity, ranging from the areas of stage speech in the theatre to the most radical practices in the field of performing arts, which emerged in the in-between space of technology, performance and medicine. By doing so, some new genres, modes of representation, production strategies and models of communities that have emerged from the positions of being in-between, are being detected. The studies identify the characteristics of contemporary art, while identifying a shift from the aesthetic to the post-aesthetic, and indicating a shift of emphasis from the political to the economic function of art.
COBISS.SI-ID: 265755136
A scientific monograph is an in-depth study of the relationship between art and the legal sphere based on a historical overview and analysis of key theoretical concepts and case studies of contemporary artistic practices. In the first part of the book, Aldo Milohnić explores a historical process of the autonomization of the legal sphere and a normative framework of human rights and the rule of law. The second part of the study is focused on the category of »autonomous art«. In this context, the author discusses »the author« as a cultural and productive worker, the position of the artist in the legal system and the origins and effects of copyright. The latter is a segment the legal sphere pays particular attention to due to a great importance of the laws of copyright regulations and intellectual property law for the development of the production mode of contemporary capitalism. An integral part of the study is the analysis of selected case studies of contemporary artistic practices that provide empirical material for theoretical reflection on the relationship between art, law and economics. Among other things, the author introduces an innovative concept of »artistic immunity« which was met with considerable interest in the academic community in the field of performing arts studies and beyond. The scientific monograph fills a gap in the field of interdisciplinary research of a specific relationship between art and law. As such, it will be an important incentive for future research in the relevant fields. The originality of the study lies in its research methodology and especially in its balanced critique of the autonomization process of societal spheres of law, economics and art. In this sense, the monograph is a complete novelty in Slovenian cultural space, as well as a considerable rarity in international humanities.
COBISS.SI-ID: 283802624
A Study on the identity crisis of national festivals in Europe
COBISS.SI-ID: 3201883
The exploration of the relationship between the fictional and the real in projects by Via Negativa, a performance group from Slovenia, is based on the presumption that the recognition of what we experience as fictional or real is decisively influenced by the perceptual activity of the spectator. The article argues that the exchange between the elements of fiction and reality takes place in two different concepts of representation: theatricality and absorption. These two opposing notions used for defining the relationship between the image represented and the spectator are elaborated on the basis of Denis Diderot's essays on theatre and fine art. These essays prove useful for the argumentation of the thesis since they testify that theatricality and absorption, each in its own way, include the spectator’s personal investment into what comes across as fictional or real. A detailed analysis of selected performances by Via Negativa shows that the real as such (i.e. the authenticity of the real that is confirmed in the identity with its own self) is impossible to achieve. Under the gaze of the spectator, the real is always revealed through some kind of representation. As also found by Alain Badiou, the authenticity of the real can only be presented through the role of semblance, mask or fiction. The article was published in a special issue of Nordic Theatre Studies journal, entitled Poetics of Playing: Fictionality, Reality and Playing in between, in which the Theatrical Event working group of the International Federation for Theatre Research published the results of their research on playing as one of the fundamental concepts of performing arts. The Group focused on the exploration of in-between spaces between performers and audiences, physical presence and embodiment, reality and fictionality, and presented a methodology for the analysis of playing in contemporary performance practices that transcend traditional understanding of play and play culture.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3854939
In theatre history, the aesthetics of stage speech and the assessment of actors’ speech have been subject to change. The article deals with acoustic features of stage speech in the first half of the 20th century. Four dramatic monologues performed by two Croatian and two Slovenian principal actresses of the time have been analyzed. The acoustic analysis of the recorded material has shown prominent sound elements, i.e. abrupt changes of intonation and speech intensity, and elongated vowel duration. These are typical characteristics of theatrical voice aesthetics of the first half of the 20th century. The study is an important contribution not only from the standpoint of studying the art of spoken artistic language and phonetics, but also from the standpoint of examining intercultural and international collaborative dynamics of Slovenians and Croats in the first half of the 20th century. The study which was published in a scientific monograph dealing with the topic of studying speech and phonetic-phonological processes in the Slavic languages, has made a pertinent contribution to the promotion of stage speech research in Slavic countries.
COBISS.SI-ID: 51137122
The article deals with the importance of culture and migration for sustainable urban development. In the first part, controversial interactions of cultural and economic values are discussed in the framework of the so-called city regeneration projects. In the second part, the notions of cultural and creative industries, creative cities, etc. that are often used in mainstream cultural policy research, are confronted with a more universal concept of »the right to the city« (Lefebvre, Harvey et al.). As a follow-up to theoretical contextualization of current research, the author discusses in great detail the most important findings of research pertaining to the role of immigrant communities for the urban and cultural development of the Slovenian capital city of Ljubljana. The central part of the study is devoted to the analysis of immigrant position in the urban and intercultural geography of the city, as well as to the prejudices constantly recurring in public debates and to stereotypical representations of immigrants in the media. By way of conclusion, the study includes a succinct presentation of two indicative cases of civil society activism (Metelkova mesto Autonomous Cultural Zone and Rog Social Centre). This chapter has been published in a scientific monograph that explores the role of national and minority cultures in the economic, political and social development of transnational formations, including the European Union.
COBISS.SI-ID: 1014381
What values do theatre and dance hold for audience members? And how do these values differ between subsidised, amateur and commercial performance? The paper addresses these issues by way of a survey, conducted in the spring of 2014. It included more than 1,800 spectators of theatre and dance shows in Tyneside in the north-eastern England, as well as a parallel set of focus groups. The methods, which are designed for comprehensiveness and comparability, are being used across Europe by the STEP project ? a Project on European Theatre Systems, led by a working group of theatre sociologists. The research has shown two sets of values that performances achieved; one was a common measure of performance quality, while the other described the values pertinent to subsidised work. This allows us to articulate a general value of the arts and particular values which subsidies (aim to) facilitate. This has implications for the understanding of cultural value as well as of cultural policy, since the distinction between the two groups is not entirely clear cut. Also, we have found out that amateur theatre participated in the same value system, but with an increased emphasis on loyalty and community cohesion. By way of conclusion, the paper presents a methodological reflection on the use of quantitative methods in theatre studies. The paper was published in the special issue of Cultural Trends journal, entitled Cultural value: empirical perspectives, presenting analyses of cultural value of art creations, conducted by empirical research methods. These represent an important addition to the qualitative evaluation methods of culture. In the arts and humanities these have been most commonly associated with theoretical studies or with art forms by singular traditions, and regarded complimentary to quantitative methods in the field of economics. Empirical studies of art can be controversial, since the notion of the empirical is often understood as a measurement in the field of marketing. However, it is the employment of such methods, stemming from the traditions of humanities, that makes it possible to demonstrate the shortcomings of cultural policies, practices and related scientific work, i.e. the interest of local communities within which the patronage of culture operates. Not only does the paper discuss the measuring of the value of theatre in the region of Tyneside, it also presents methodology for accurate evaluation of theatre practices elsewhere in the world.
COBISS.SI-ID: 3948379