Nika Oblak & Primož Novak

Nika Oblak & Primož Novak have been working as a collective since 2003. In their artistic practice, they examine contemporary media and capital driven society as they dissect its visual and linguistic structure. They have exhibited worldwide, in venues like the Sharjah Biennial (UAE), Japan Media Arts Festival, Tokyo (JP), Istanbul Biennial (TR), Transmediale Berlin (DE), FILE Sao Paulo (BR). Oblak & Novak received numerous grants and awards, including the CYNETART Award (DE), an honorary mention at Biennale WRO (PL), White Aphroid Award by MMC KIBLA (SI) and Rihard Jakopic honourable mention, highest national award for visual arts (SI).

ARTWORK

Square Slide (Installation)
Square Slide explores the tension between the physical and the digital, between gravity and form. It turns the monitor into an object with physical properties, mimicking actual life. Mounted diagonally, it invites the performers to move along its tilted planes — sliding, balancing, and redefining the screen’s spatial logic. The piece questions how the digital frame and its content shape our daily actions — how we, as free, fluid, spatial, and movement-based beings, adapt our realities to the logic of two-dimensional technologies and the endless scroll of digital storytelling.

TRAILER
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VjXhN-9CHIo

TALK
Reality Is Out
Reality Is Out will present a selection of kinetic video installations by the artist duo Nika Oblak & Primož Novak, whose work explores the relationship between human beings and contemporary technologies. Combining moving images, mechanical motion and sculptural elements, their installations examine how digital systems, screens and algorithms increasingly shape our perception, behaviour and everyday routines. Through repetition, humour and subtle absurdity, their works reflect on the paradox of technological progress: while technology promises greater freedom and efficiency, it often draws us into new cycles of repetition, distraction and dependence. The lecture will discuss how Oblak & Novak’s installations use kinetic movement and looping actions to question autonomy, attention and the changing nature of human experience in an increasingly mediated world.

WEBSITE
http://www.oblak-novak.org/