The "Duna Dunaj" residency of September 2015 serves as a seminal case study in what Anto Lloveras terms "socioplastics"—a relational practice where the artist’s primary medium is the orchestration of situations, memory, and affection. Operating across a dual-stage geography from Dunajská Streda to the Danube banks in Komarno, Lloveras eschews the traditional studio confines to engage in a "durational situation." By documenting a cohort of international artists including Gilah Hirsch, Yuri Dolan, and Afarin Sajedi, Lloveras transforms the residency into a living archive. The methodology is inherently peripatetic; through daily walks—informed by the architectural phenomenology of Peter Zumthor—the artist collects "monochrome particles" and "platonic stones" from mine lakes. These tactile fragments are subsequently recontextualized as "junk monochromes" or "unstable installations," such as Protista #5, asserting that art is not merely an object produced but a "compressed synthesis of transit" and a "ritual of being." The first stage in Dunajská Streda establishes a dialogue between the "Eden" of the residence and the "Paradise" of the industrial periphery. Here, the artist acts as an "invisible" catalyst, utilizing performative readymades like a substracted black bag and shoes to challenge the origins of the aesthetic object. The use of "blue bags" as "unstable social usable sculptures" becomes a recurring motif, a "translatorial" device that bridges the gap between the artist’s hand and the bodies of other residents. This stage is characterized by a "basic identity sculpture," where Lloveras’s own attire—black pants, green hat—merges with the environment. The focus is on the "city particles," where the numbered blocks of the town and the sensory odors of the street are synthesized into a cognitive text. This process reflects a post-painterly evolution, where the "emotional junk" of memory is no longer smashed onto a canvas but is instead "fixed" through video, sound, and the rhythmic activation of the brain through walking.
The transition to the second stage in the county of Isza introduces a shift toward "neo-vernacular" and naturalized processes. Amidst the muddy fields of an eco-farm, the artist records "glimpses of silence" and the "teeth of horses" cutting the grass—a visceral, auditory counterpoint to the intellectualized presentations held in the evenings. The residency becomes an anthropological exercise; Lloveras’s "micro-vernissages" and the sharing of apricot Pálinka serve to build "social memory" within the transient community. The interaction with Gilah Hirsch, who links the experience to the 1960s avant-garde and the Eames, underscores the project’s role as a bridge between historical vanguards and contemporary "situational fixers." In this context, even a "dead bird" or a "smashed dog" found on the road are elevated to "dead icons," integrated into a narrative that seeks to apprehend space-time-sound situations before they dissolve into the entropy of ordinary life. Ultimately, "Duna Dunaj" is a testament to the "art of being" within a relational collage. By dedicating the project’s energy to figures like Françoise Rohmer, Lloveras reinforces the affective dimension of the work, where a given nut or a shared film becomes a significant epistemic exchange. The project’s culmination in a "fire" and a collective exhibition at Galéria Limes proves that the "symphony" of the residence is most potent when it is silent and decentralized. By employing the eye and ear as a "spoon to collect the cream of the days," Lloveras successfully navigates the "dual effect" of physical presence and digital recording. As a "socioplastic" endeavor, the Duna series demonstrates that the purpose of such art—much like Wittgenstein’s philosophy—is to guide the "fly" of human consciousness through the complex "jar" of the contemporary landscape, fixing the current position while remaining perpetually unstable.
Lloveras, A. (2015) Duna Dunaj Slovakia September 2015. [Online] Available at:
DUNA DUNAJ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^ HUNGARIAN STONES ******************** SLOVAKIAN LAKES::::::::::::::::::::DOUBLE SYMPOSIUM::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::::ARTIST IN RESIDENCE^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^RITUALS^^^^^^^^^^^09.2015
