Računari 144 ▪︎ Darija Medić
The first issue of the cult computer magazine Računari was published in 1984, and the last in February 1999. This was just a month before the release of the first Matrix film, as well as the bombing of Serbia by NATO. For 15 years this magazine was issued on a monthly basis, persevering through the Yugoslavian war and collapse of the SFRY. It survived sanctions and inflation, shaping and influencing generations of programmers and computer enthusiasts.
In the third issue of the magazine, journalist Jelena Rupnik wrote the article “The Computer is of Male Gender”, which questioned the impact on interpersonal relations and subsequent gender roles at the introduction of the era of personal computers into households in the early eighties. As the magazine progressed, it gained fame (and eventually notoriety) for its controversial and inappropriate depictions of overtly sexualised cover models, starting with the famous issue number 11 (the first one to feature and focus on female legs) and progressing to the more explicit cover scenes from the mid-’90s.
The scenography, which was in its first edition realised for the festival SUTRA at the Museum of Science and Technology, is offering visitors a new iteration from May 29 to June 29 in the Art Gallery of Belgrade Cultural Centre, in which they can physically enter the frame of the cover to create their own scenarios and choose the titles for their edition. The space also holds a series of video interviews in the form of “living covers”, and the audience has the opportunity to contribute to new interpretations of the existing archive. The collection of these alternative interpretations will be featured in the new 144th speculative edition of the magazine Računari, which is this time not published by BIGZ, but by the Cultural Centre of Belgrade and the promotion of which will take place June 28, 2025, at 6 p.m., with a guided tour of the show.
The exhibition website will also offer additional supporting materials during the exhibition.
Darija Medić is a tactical media artist, practice-based researcher and media designer investigating contemporary agential labyrinths of cohabiting with technical infrastructures and their sociopolitical ecosystems. In particular, her work addresses the barriers to equitable user experience design from a critical materialist and disability justice standpoint. Combining a range of media into low tech participatory installations, interventions and performances she creates collective processes for sensitising sometimes absurd, politically laden points behind the space where technical mediation and prosumer habituation meet. She is currently a tenure-track assistant professor of digital design in the Department of Visual Arts at the College of Arts & Media, University of Colorado Denver and is completing her Ph.D. at the Intermedia Art Writing and Performance Program at the University of Colorado Boulder. She is also a lecturer at the SHIFTA Creative Computing Master program for the module Internet Equalities.
Collaborators on the project: Ana Knežević Cekić, Larisa Blažić, Mirjana Tasić, Milica Gudović, Mirjana Utvić, Sunčica Pasuljević-Kandić. Special thanks to the archives of the Museum of Science and the digital archival project archive.org.