Project Digital Art in Croatia 1968 - 1984 produced by Technical Museum Nikola Tesla (TMNT) includes an exhibition and a book by Darko Fritz (Croatian edition ISBN 978-953-6568-75-8, publisher TMNT, 2020; English edition ISBN 978-953-6568- 89–5, publisher TMNT, 2022) and the website. The website presents shortened versions of the texts and a short selection of reproductions of exhibits and illustrations from the book in the editorial and curatorial selection of Darko Fritz.
There are multiple reasons for discussion of the theme of early digital art in Croatia in the Technical Museum Nikola Tesla. One of the programmatic orientations of the Museum is “interdisciplinarity – science and art”, which is also one of the essential features of the digital art presented in this book. Early digital art came into being in scientific institutions and at universities, and many of the proponents of it were the scientists or engineers who had access to what at that time was an exclusive technology and who, spurred by the opportunities it provided, out of curiosity or driven by scientific concepts and artistic impulses, began to create works of art.
The temporal framework of early digital art in Croatia in this project is bounded by emblematic years: revolutionary 1968, when the first exhibition of digital art was put on, and Orwellian 1984.
The cultural climate in Zagreb, which was manifested, among other phenomena, by a series of international exhibitions and the New Tendencies (NT) movement, gave rise between 1961 and 1978 to “the initiation, first production, presentation, exhibition, criticism and theory of domestic digital art as well as its presence in world digital art networks from 1968”. (Darko Fritz) It is important furthermore, according to Fritz, to highlight the ideas of Matko Meštrović about the synthesis of science and art within the context of the “synthesis of science and art in the framework of “scientification” of humanist disciplines and art as part of the long-term (utopian) process of the overall scientification of all human activity … starting with the appropriation of such scientific methods as research and experiment”.
One of the initiators of the founding of the Technical Museum, Božo Težak, took an active part in the New Tendencies programmes, and I believe he is to be credited with the exhibition of publications that was held in the ISIP (International Permanent Exhibition of Publications) space in the Technical Museum in 1969 as part of the tendencies 4 programme. The 1973 exhibition tendencies 5, one segment of which was concerned with “computers and visual research”, was put on principally in the premises of the Technical Museum.
Bearing in mind the profile of the museum that produced the programme, the creator of the project, Darko Fritz, adjusted his approach to the topic, discussing not only the artistic but also the technical aspects of the works and the technological context of their origins as well as the social and economic circumstances of computerisation in Croatia in the 1960s and 1970s.
The exhibition includes items from the computer technology collection of the Technical Museum Nikola Tesla, among others precisely those that pioneers of digital art in Croatia worked on.
Markita Franulić
Banner in front of the Technical Museum Nikola Tesla
Robot made by Branimir Makanec and Group of Cyberneticians and documentation on (New) Tendencies
Works by Miljenko Horvat and Vilko Žiljak
Works by Vilko Žiljak
Works by Vladimir Bonačić
The author of the exhibition Darko Fritz and the director of the Museum Markita Franulić in front of the works of Vladimir Bonačić
Work by Vladimir Bonačić
Detail of Vladimir Bonačić's work
Computer PDP 8, on which Vladimir Bonačića worked, teleprinter and oscilloscope (from the TMNT collection)
Computer PDP 8, detail
Works by Vladimir Bonačić
Works by bcd - cybernetic art team and Andrija Mutnjaković
Documentation and works of bcd - cybernetic art team
Documentation of installations by Vladimir Bonačić
Works by Miljenko Horvat and documentation of installations by Vladimir Bonačić
Magazines Bit International: documentation on (New) Tendencies
Documentation on (New) Tendencies
Works by Vilko Žiljak and Tomislav Mikulić
Documentation and works of Tomislav Mikulić
Guidance through the exhibition: Darko Fritz in front of the works of Tomislav Mikulić
Slide projection by Tomislav Mikulić, works by Nikola Šerman and Vlatko Čerić
Detail of Vlatko Čerić's work
Computer IBM 1130, detail (from the TMNT collection)
Computer IBM 1130
Guide through the exhibition: Darko Fritz in front of the cabinet for storing punched cards (from the TMNT collection)
View of the exhibition
Works by Nikola Šerman made with an analog computer
Works by Nikola Šerman made with an analog computer
Works of Nikola Šerman migrated to a digital computer
Works by Nikola Tanhofer
View of the exhibition
Documentation of Andrija Mutnjaković's works
Works by Andrija Mutnjaković
Opening of the exhibition, Darko Fritz, Dunja Donassy, Andrija Mutnjaković, Markita Franulić, Anuška Deranja Crnokić, Vlatko Čerić
Opening of the exhibition, Darko Fritz, Anuška Deranja Crnokić
Croatian and English editions of the book
Marko Golub, Darko Fritz and Markita Franulić at the promotion of the Croatian edition of the book in pandemic conditions, March 27, 2021
Promotion of the Croatian edition of the book in pandemic conditions, 2021.
Darko Fritz at the promotion of the Croatian edition of the book
Markita Franulić, Darko Fritz and Zvonko Maković at the promotion of the English edition of the book, February 18, 2023
Promotion of the English edition of the book
Andrija Mutnjaković, guidance through the Old Town Hall in Zagreb, 25 February 2023
Darko Fritz, Andrija Mutnjaković and Markita Franulić, guidance through the Old Town Hall
Darko Fritz, guidance through the Old Town Hall
Guidance through the Old Town Hall
Andrija Mutnjaković, guidance through the Old Town Hall
Detail of the interior of the Old Town Hall