Twenty-four-year-old Urša Halilovič is a traveller and an artist who likes to combine her two passions into one. She has travelled a large part of Europe, America and Africa, and she even accompanied her boyfriend on city tours in Japan, worked as a volunteer in Taşkent Doğa Parkı rehabilitation centre for wild animals, and drove across whole Andalusia all the way to Gibraltar in a rented car.
Culture, art and various festivals are the constant companions on her travels. She even combined art and travelling. She mostly enjoys in psytrance festivals, which she wrote about in her bachelor’s thesis Extended Spaces of the Visible in Scenographic Elements of the Psytrance Scene, something that covers a significant part of her interests. These types of festivals have people dancing at the sounds of music while admiring works of art of various artists.
Explaining what I like to create most is difficult for me because art that I create is so diverse that I can’t place myself within any specific category or compartment, so to speak. At first, before the Academy, I mostly focused on line art, and then came college and painting. It was at college that I started painting and soon went back to a kind of illustrative, surreal figurative art and then, in the second year, started exploring psychedelic art.
I find it especially important that artists call for art to be presented in the same way to everyone. In other words, that people who don’t attend openings of exhibitions or art and who don’t know or aren’t interested that kind of thing can experience at least part of it in different ways. For example, people who attend these festivals have to look at paintings placed around the dancefloor all the time while dancing and enjoying music. Of course, the question arises of who actually goes to these festivals and what really constitutes a wider audience, but everyone can answer this question differently. Let me also mention the many types of street art, which is also a great source of inspiration for me, so I humbly label myself as part of this type of art.
I’m interested in combining all types of art – from audio to visual art as well as body art, though I myself don’t create audio art or perform, but rather collaborate with musicians and performing artists. That way I also work with DJs and bands and make decorations, album covers, merchandise, logos and other things for them. Overall, I like to test myself and experiment with all kinds of things that are given to me and that cross my path.
I made paintings using airbrush and acrylic paint on an elastic material known as Lycra. It’s a special type of elastic fibre that can be stretched across a room and doesn’t tear. Because I wanted the venue to be a truly magical place, I asked the director of Mežica Mines if it would be possible to organise an event of a smaller scale in the hall or the mines. Since she organises acoustic concerts herself every now and then, she agreed to it.
The preparations lasted one whole semester because I had to make enough paintings to decorate a large space. I had to visit the mines a couple of times, which was kind of ridiculous because I always had to enter the tunnels on a small mine train, all the while taking with me people who took care of the sound system, as well as equipment, such as canvas tools and stretching accessories etc. My team and I put up UV cannon spotlights and other lights as well as other necessary equipment in the mines one day in advance.
I organised online registration on Facebook so guests could book a ticket. I had to do that due to the limited number of passengers that can board the train and due to the limited capacity of the mine hall, which can only take in about 120 people. The tickets were sold fast because it seemed a real adventure to people.
On the day of the event, visitors in mining vests and helmets were taken into the mine on the train, specifically 3.5 kilometres deep into the tunnels, all the way to the centre of the cave where DJs and I awaited them. Along with my paintings, their animations, which I painted on canvas, were also displayed on the mine walls. The entire event and the appearance were an interesting experience. All that in a cave where time practically stops, since there’s no daylight or sounds, other than the psychedelic music. UV lights, paintings and projections blurred the lines of reality for the visitors and played with their orientation.
Of course, we had to organise an after party because we could only spend four hours in the mine due to the 90% humidity and the cold. That’s why I moved the party to Špajz in Slovenj Gradec where it lasted until morning with additional four DJs.
I was really happy when I got feedback from a few visitors who summed up their feelings and experiences they got from the paintings, coupled with music, when they went into their “states”. They achieved all this with the help of my paintings, found themselves in them and “swam with them”. I therefore accomplished my purpose.
At psytrance festivals, visual art is undoubtedly an essential part of this art. The festival space is larger, there are more stages and consequently also more visitors. My first experience with the festival I attended was indescribable. The Ozora Festival takes place in the village of Ozora, Hungary, and it’s one of the largest psytrance festivals, celebrating its twentieth anniversary this year. I would also like to mention the Boom Festival in Portugal and the Momento Demento in Croatia. People come from all over the world, in all colours, with smiles on their faces, wearing rainbow clothes, symbolic tattoos, space masks, their dreadlocks tied together... Music pulsates from the stages and each one is dedicated to a different genre. Visitors listen to music and play cards, make fine art objects, amulets, clothes, statues or paintings, or learn other skills from various artists. Good mood and socialising abound. Each evening, the circus arena hosts various shows of acrobats, fire eaters and various other performers. The tea house offers tea, herbs, cooking lessons or simply a space where you can get some relaxation or munch on snacks. There are science workshops and seminars in the laboratory, plus there’s group exercise and childcare. There are various art installations all around the stage and they’re made of recycled and natural materials. Mythical creatures, upside down trees, moving structures, iron structures, merry-go-rounds etc. Among them, one can see light dancers, light jugglers, ribbon dancers with their illuminated LED ribbons etc. The music speeds up towards the morning and changes into darkpsy, and when the sun rises, the rhythm slows down and the music becomes melodic again. The sense of time disappears or, should I say, the attendees feel time differently. The optical becomes rhythmical and the sound, with the help of art projections, becomes almost visible. Everyone dances in their own style and yet it seems they each use the typical psytrance moves. I feel like I’m finally home because there’s really that global tribe feeling.
Those of you who haven’t been to such a festival, well, it would be quite an interesting experience. And who knows. Maybe you could spot Urša’s work.
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