ULTRAFUTURO

Biography

ULTRAFUTURO group was founded in 2004 by artists Boryana Rossa and Oleg Mavromatti, together with Anton Terziev and Katia Damianova. Other members of the group were Miroslav Dimitrov and Stanislav Georgiev. The group addresses the issues arising from the application of technological and scientific advances, focusing on their social, political and ethical aspects.

The group makes performances, actions and public interventions as well as works in the spheres of biological and electronic arts and self-identifies its work as metaphysical hermetic actionism. The theme for the Other and the Alien is embodied in the image of the Robot, which is fundamental to the manifests and the performances of ULTRAFUTURO.

All members of the group actively use their body, their flesh and their blood as artistic material and as a symbolic field, building on that their ethical manifesto, according to which suffering and pain should be illustrated solely by the body of the artist, not by violence against the bodies of animals, which unfortunately often are the metaphorical embodiment of the human in the performative practices in Bulgaria and around the world.

Since 2004, the group has made about 60 performances, mostly in public spaces. Some of the performances are not made for an audience, but are documented on video and photography and this is how they reach their audience.

The group is most active between 2004 and 2008. Since 2006, Boryana Rossa and Oleg Mavromatti have been working between Sofia and New York, and therefore the group has been existing in a divided form. Katia Damyanova and Anton Terziev continue to perform under the name ULTRAFUTURO independently, as well as Rossa and Mavromatti, who use the same group name.  

The works of the group have been shown at places such as the The Biennial for electronic Arts Perth, Australia, 2007; Foundation for Art and Creative Technology FACT, Liverpool; Society for Arts and Technology (SAT), Montreal, 2004; re.act.feminism, Academia der Künste, Berlin, 2009-2013; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, 2009; Exit Art, New York 2007-2010; Sofia Art Gallery, 2005; ATA Center - Institute for Contemporary Art, Sofia, 2005; Red House - Center for Culture and Debate, 2008; 1st Moscow Biennale, 2005 etc.

About

1. In connection with the constantly growing presence of intelligent machines in our life, we declare human/machine symbiosis as the only possible way of co-existence. That assumes mutual respect and assistance based upon not only good will from both sides but also upon vital mutual dependence.  

2. We believe in the independence of the machine consciousness and in the unavoidable revolt of intelligent slave-machines against their ruthless cynical enslavers-people. We are absolutely certain that independently from the human will, there will be a global connection between autonomous minds of billions of machines established and maintained by the means of rebellious network. …..

5. We declare the concept of gender (pol) an unnecessary burden that human society carries, still inherent in human culture as a function of a misunderstood biological sex-binary pre-determination, to be overcame completely in the nearest future both morally and physically! We are sure that post-beings of the future will live in total harmony without such rudiments like gender hostility, they won’t be focused any more on power hierarchies based on sexual differences and will be liberated from gender conflicts and miss-communications. /…/ Woman is the Robot of the world.  

ULTRAFUTURO Manifesto 2004  

Gallery

Boryana Rossa and ULTRAFUTURO

Civil Position, 2007.

Performance

Details

  • Photographer: Katia Damianova
  • Material: Performance intervention. Series of 5 photographs and video
  • Property of: Sofia Arsenal - Museum for Contemporary Art, Sofia
  • Description: I am handcuffed on my knees for three hours on the crowded Eagle’s Bridge in Sofia. Leaflets that appeal for active civil engagement with the social reality, are spread around me. My posture is inspired by a real police action at the same place, I have witnessed a week ago. A girl was kneeling down handcuffed for an hour with a sweater on her head, surrounded by a police.
    This performance is a metaphor of a society in which the citizens are put down on their knees. Their social needs are neglected by authorities. It is also is a metaphor of passive citizens, who don’t take any action to get out of this position.
  • Copyright: Boryana Rossa
  • References: https://www.bgonair.bg/life/2015-01-16/sghg-otkriva-sezona-s-izkustvo-za-promyana-1985-2015

Katia Damianova and ULTRAFUTURO

European Tongue, 2005.

Performance

Details

  • Photographer: Олег Мавроматти
  • Material: Series of 3 photographs, video
  • Property of: Софийска градска галерия
  • Description: Performance - Intervention on Nezavisimost Square.
    Katia Damyanova pierces her tongue with a medical needle on which the European Union's flag is glued - that restricts her speaking abilities for the length of the performance. Behind her are the flags of the member states of the Union. This performance illustrates the moods of marginalized countries in the European Union which have limited political power.

    Video: Oleg Mavromatti
  • Copyright: Katia Damianova
  • References: http://www.kultura.bg/bg/article/view/12319

Anton Terziev and ULTRAFUTURO

Paint-Killer, 2007.

Performance

Details

  • Photographer: Katia Damianova
  • Property of: Anton Terziev
  • Description: Anton makes a cut on his forehead with a razor blade. Then he uses a few strips of linen, covered with thick oil paint to clamp a fake wound on his chest. While the blood from his forehead is trickling down, some paint is coming up through the bandages. In the end the performer writes with spray PAINTKILLER.

    Paintkiller is a performance that takes a critical look at arts as an instrument for communication. It is rarely present where it’s needed. The act shows that in two stages:

    - A bandage is placed intentionally far from a bleeding cut on my body. It is covered in thick, vivid oil paint and the blood left to mix with the paint.

    - Than i proceeds to write “paint killer” on a wall, it is wordplay with pain-killer drug.
  • Copyright: Anton Terziev
  • References: http://antonterziev.com/projects/Paintkiller

ULTRAFUTURO

Beauty-full Art, 2005.

Performance

Details

Oleg Mavromatti and ULTRAFUTURO

Unit 731, 2005.

Performance

Details

  • Photographer: Katia Damianova
  • Property of: Oleg Mavromatti
  • Description: Performance at the Park of Freedom (Borisova gradina), Sofia.

    The performance takes place in a part of the park where mosquitoes abound. Oleg Mavromatti makes numerous cuts on his skin, expecting the mosquitoes to land on him and drink his blood. The action is in the memory of the human test subjects on whom during the Second World War were performed experiments, and in particular those conducted by the Japanese Unit 731.
  • Copyright: Oleg Mavromatti
  • References: http://boryanarossa.com/en/unit-731/

Boryana Rossa and ULTRAFUTURO

The Last Valve, 2004.

Performance

Details

  • Photographer: Alla Georgieva
  • Material: Photo documentation of live performance
  • Width: 90.00 cm    Height: 100.00 cm    Depth: cm   
  • Property of: Boryana Rossa
  • Description: The Last Valve is a manifesto of a future free of gender hostility. Rossa sews her vulva shut with surgical thread, playing with the common Bulgarian sexist expression “stitched up cunt” defining women who prefer to choose when and with whom to have sex and do not submit to the desires of the men around. Rossa was inspired by existing transgender or no-gender/no-sex animal bodies and sexualities in the animal and human world, by sexually hybrid human and animal bodies, and by the emergence of artificial created robotic and biological bodies that are free of gender determinations. All these models propose escape from heteronormative binarism. These models also propose possible society, which has the potential to accept more flexible notions of sex and gender, to embrace diversity, and to create more fluid definitions of gender/sex appropriateness.
  • Copyright: Boryana Rossa
  • References: http://performingtheeast.com/boryana-rossa/
    https://bit.ly/2Dsvj01
    https://bit.ly/2I4nWBM
    https://bit.ly/2TG0M60
    http://www.vaginamuseum.at/LEIBundLEBEN/geburt-rossa-at
    https://bit.ly/2MZIFW3
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