Artist

Hrvoje Horvatic

Breda Beban was born in Novi Said, Yugoslavia in 1952, Hvorje Horvatic was born in Rijeka in 1958. The two artists first began collaborating in 1985. Since then their work has been seen internationally at numerous festivals and events including the World Wide Video Festival in Holland, the Third Fukui International Biennale, Fukui City, Japan and Edge '90 in the UK. Beban and Horvatic have also frequently collaborated with TV Skopje and TV Beograde in Yugoslavia in producing tapes for broadcast. "All Our Secrets" was also broadcast on the BBC 2 programme "White Noise" in 1990.

In our video works we explore love, light and time. These three things can belong to no one; we discover aspects of them through our self-deception. When we belong to them, then silence befalls us. At such times, the position of an "artist who rules" is absolutely untenable. Only through observation, contemplation and humiliation can one achieve insights.

The treatment of the video image itself aims gently to shift the viewer away from his usual focus. He no longer is an open space and the monitor a "window onto the world" at the center of which the lines of perspective converge. The spectator's eye must become this point of convergence; and the electronic picture, a thin membrane, pulsating between the visible and the invisible. It thus pushes the limits of space out to infinity. The impression from watching arises there, where the image is. The image represents its object integrally.

We think in terms, not of "renaissance perspective", but in terms of "reverse perspective". This is typical of a different cultural heritage and tradition. We do not consider the image a mirror, but rather a dark glass through which one can peer.

Videography

MAY 98

1998, 10:43 minutes, colour, English

Jason's Dream

1997, 10:36 minutes, colour, English

Hand on the Shoulder

1997, 41:45 minutes, colour/B&W

Absence, She Said

1995, 15:53 minutes, colour/B&W

The Life Line Letter

1992, 01:00 minutes, colour

The Left Hand Should Know

1992, 39:00 minutes, colour, English

For Tara

1991, 04:50 minutes, colour/B&W

For You In Me And Me In Them To Be One

1989, 30:00 minutes, colour/B&W

Geography

1989, 09:00 minutes, colour, English

Taking On A Name

1987, 25:00 minutes, colour, English

Critical Writing

Everything Is Connected
by Chris Darke et al. Sight and Sound, Feb. 1995, no. 46.
Not Waving but Peering: Breda Beban/Hrvoje Horvatic at the Riverside
by Angie Daniell. Independent Media, Dec. 1988, no. 84.
Spinning Wildly or Sitting Still: High tech vs. the new Minimalism
by Jeremy Walsh. Performance Magazine, Feb. 1 Winter, 1988, no. 52.