Sara Bezovšek, a screen recording of the webpage www.s-n-d.si, 2021
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LINKED SPHERES is an innovative online platform dedicated to critical analysis and idea exchange, fostering discussions with leading artists on the influence of technology in shaping our creative and societal landscapes.
Inspired by Bruno Latour’s insights, the project delves into the intricate relationships between various social spheres and the interconnected networks that define contemporary existence, focusing on the intersections of art, technology, and human experiences.
Through captivating conversations and showcased artworks, LINKED SPHERES examines how technological advancements such as AI, robotics, and virtual reality impact personal relationships and fundamental rights. Featured artists actively engage with and challenge technology, offering unique perspectives on this dynamic relationship.
The platform’s interactive navigation, inspired by the rhizomatic model of Deleuze and Guattari, dynamically links various perspectives and practices, creating an immersive environment for exploration and discourse.
Join LINKED SPHERES in exploring these themes and engaging with artists who critically reflect on and reimagine technology’s role in society.
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Haami Nyangibo
Curator
Sophie Nowakowska
Curator
Sean Burn
Identity Design
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Sara Bezovšek
Featured by Haami Nyangibo
Sara Bezovšek stands out in contemporary art for integrating internet culture into digital media. Based in Ljubljana, Slovenia, and holding an MFA from the Academy of Fine Arts and Design, University of Ljubljana, Sara combines memes, film clips, and interactive elements to create vibrant pieces that reflect our everyday online experiences. Her work explores how digital trends shape our identities and change the way we communicate, effectively capturing the fast-paced nature of the internet.
Her ability to incorporate familiar yet fleeting symbols from the digital age allows her art to resonate deeply with audiences, offering both relatability and thought-provoking commentary on modern connectivity. Projects like “SND”and “A Life of Its Own” address significant themes such as environmental sustainability and human vulnerability. By encouraging active audience participation, her interactive installations create personalised experiences, emphasising the participatory essence of internet culture.
In recognition of her contributions to digital and experimental art, Sara received the Grand Prix at the Ljubljana Short Film Festival (FeKK) in 2021 and the Vesna Award for Best Slovenian Experimental Film in 2022. In 2022, she was also nominated for the OHO Young Artist Award. Currently, Sara is working on a project for the research platform [permanent beta] at the Fotomuseum Winterthur and developing a sequel to her film www.s-n-d.si, with the support of the Slovenian Film Centre.
Haami Nyangibo: You often use elements of internet culture in your work. What is it about this digital world that captures your interest, and why do you think it’s important to explore in art?
Sara Bezovšek: The internet is such a central part of our daily lives that it feels natural for me to incorporate it into my work. People also relate to it a lot, which helps me communicate my ideas more effectively. When viewers recognize and understand the references I use, it adds layers of meaning to my art. The more they relate to these references, the more they grasp the themes I’m exploring.
Additionally, the online world is a constantly evolving landscape, full of fleeting trends, interesting phenomena and collective behaviours. I find it fascinating how internet culture reshapes identities and communication, often blurring the lines between the personal and the public. By using these elements in my art, I aim to document how digital environments influence the way we perceive reality.
In projects like SND, you combine everything from memes to film clips. How do you choose what to include, and does the process ever feel overwhelming?
It’s only overwhelming at first, when I’m faced with a blank canvas. After that, it’s like solving a puzzle. The pieces (memes, movie clips, quotes, GIFs, etc.) start to fit together, and the closer I get to the end, the more enjoyable the process becomes. In the final stages, I often begin to remove content that no longer feels right and focus on refining the overall piece. Throughout the process, I keep all the found material on the canvas, trying to incorporate as much as possible while maintaining a sense of balance.
I think the choice of what to include comes down to a balance between instinct and intention. Each fragment – whether it’s a meme, a movie clip, or Internet ephemera – has its own cultural weight and significance, and I choose them based on how well they reflect the broader themes I’m exploring. It’s like curating a conversation between these different elements; they need to resonate with each other while contributing to a larger narrative. Although the process can seem chaotic at first, the end result feels cohesive because the references build upon each other and create a multi-layered understanding of the subject I’m portraying. Each choice adds depth to the work, and as the puzzle comes together, the connections between these fragments become clearer and more meaningful.
Sara Bezovšek, Overpopulation webpage, www.s-n-d.si/overpopulation, 2021
–Scroll within the embedded window to explore the website–
Interactivity plays a big role in much of your art. How do you think this affects the way people experience your work compared to more traditional forms of art?
With interactivity, I can attract a broader audience, including those who enjoy exploring websites and playing games. However, when it comes to exhibiting in real world interactivity is sometimes a bit of a challenge, so I often exhibit screen recordings of my webpages as films, since video content is easier and more comfortable for people to engage with in a gallery setting. This allows viewers to watch the narrative unfold passively, while still giving them the option to explore the webpage on their own terms at home if they wish.
I do like the interactivity because unlike traditional art forms, where the audience remains distant, it allows them to shape their journey and make it more memorable. I also love that the experience can change depending on how much the viewer chooses to interact. It mirrors the participatory nature of internet culture, where users constantly influence and reshape digital spaces. Creating interactive pieces felt like a natural, almost subconscious choice for me—it was the most suitable way to engage with the themes of digital culture and user interaction that I explore in my work.
You’ve said before that you enjoy researching topics you’re unfamiliar with. What’s something new you’ve recently explored, and how did it influence your current work?
Right now, I’m working on my series of webpages titled A Life of Its Own, where I explore how cult movies are appropriated into memes and GIFs and how they gain new meanings in digital spaces. The project examines how these fragments are circulated, reinterpreted, and sometimes weaponized by different cultural or political agendas.
Currently, I’m focusing on The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring. While I had watched the movie before, I’m now engaging with it on a much deeper, meta level by dissecting and reconstructing its scenes for my project. This closer examination has given me a better understanding of the immense fan culture surrounding the film and its entire universe. How the visual vocabulary and iconic moments of the film translate into meme culture, and how interconnected fan communities are with the way films are marketed, discussed, and preserved online. It has influenced me to think about how this shared creative labor shapes not only how we consume media, but also how we interact with it asit becomes part of our collective memory.
Along with Fellowship of the Ring I’m also working on The Matrix and American Psycho. Both highly influential and memed films. They are being produced for the online platform [permanent beta] of the Fotomuseum Winterthur.
Your work often focuses on environmental issues and human fragility. Do you think of your art as a way to raise awareness, or is it more about reflecting on these challenges?
Hopefully, it’s both, but I’m not sure if it truly raises awareness, as most of the people who encounter my work are likely already conscious of these issues. However, I see it as a necessary reminder. In today’s fast-paced world, we tend to quickly forget or become desensitized to problems like the ongoing genocides, wars, climate change, income inequality, the erosion of privacy in the digital age, etc, but that doesn’t mean we should.
My work aims to reflect on the complexities of these challenges, presenting them in a way that is immersive and prompts viewers to think about their role in these crises. Rather than offering solutions, I want my art to provoke thought, dialogue, and perhaps a shift in perspective. By using familiar elements of internet culture, I try to make these issues more engaging, creating a space where viewers can connect emotionally with the subject matter.
Sara Bezovšek, a screen recording of the webpage www.s-n-d.si, 2021
The internet changes so quickly, and platforms can disappear. How do you make sure your digital art survives when the technology behind it changes?
I keep the exported code for most of my webpages stored on external drives, so my immediate concern is making sure those files don’t get corrupted or become outdated. I also screen record all my webpages, so even if they can’t be accessed in their original interactive form, I still have video documentation that captures the experience.
But I know the internet is always changing, and that comes with a sense of things not lasting forever. One of the challenges for digital artists is to keep up with these changes. I see it as a constant process of archiving—not just storing the work, but finding new ways to keep it accesible on future platforms. This uncertainty mirrors the way internet culture works, where something can go viral one day and disappear the next.
For me, this adds another layer of meaning to my art. It shows the tension between things lasting forever and things being temporary. Instead of fighting this, I embrace it as part of the experience, allowing the possibility that my work might change or even disappear over time, just like the internet itself.
You’ve mentioned dealing with broken links and outdated content in your web-based work. Do you see this as a problem, or does it add to the message of your art in some way?
I still see broken links and outdated content as more of a feature than a problem. The internet changes so fast that it’s impossible for me to keep track of everything, and I don’t try to. These issues don’t really affect the main experience of viewing my art, so they don’t bother me.
In fact, I think broken links and outdated content add to the message of my work. They show how temporary the internet and digital culture can be. Just like memories or moments in history, parts of the web disappear or become inaccesible, and that fading becomes part of the story. It reminds viewers that digital spaces are always changing, which fits with the themes of fragility and change that I often explore in my art.
With AI becoming more common in the creative world, do you see it influencing your future projects? If so, how might it change the way you work?
I hope so! AI could be a helpful tool for gathering content, preparing images, and finding key quotes from articles—basically acting like an assistant to make parts of my process easier. While a lot of this is already possible, I’ve only used it a little so far. What excites me most is how AI could speed up research and help me focus more on the creative side. It might also reveal patterns or connections in culture that I wouldn’t have noticed on my own.
That said, I’m not interested in using AI to create content for me. I still see myself as the artist making decisions and interpreting what I find. But I have thought about using already existing AI-generated content created by others, especially since the internet is flooded with it now (and it is getting worse by the second).
Your art is packed with pop culture references. Do you think your work reflects the worries of today’s society, or are you aiming to challenge the way people think about these cultural elements?
I think my work definitely reflects the anxieties of today’s society, particularly how we interact with and consume digital culture. By using pop culture references, I tap into imagery and narratives that people can easily relate to, which helps highlight underlying concerns—whether it’s about environmental degradation, the overwhelming presence of technology, or the fragility of human connections in the digital age.
At the same time, I aim to challenge how people think about these cultural elements. As someone once said, ‘The best way to comment on society is through its own references and images.’ By remixing and decontextualizing pop culture, I encourage viewers to question how these images and narratives shape their perceptions of reality. In an age where we are bombarded with media, we can become desensitized and my work, which is usually highly saturated, tries to reflect that.
In works like Nuclear Winter, you deal with big, global problems. How do you make these large-scale ideas more relatable for your audience?
I think references play a crucial role in making large-scale ideas more understandable and relatable. By incorporating familiar elements from pop culture, media, and everyday life, I can ground complex global issues in something that resonates with viewers on a personal level. This approach helps bridge the gap between abstract concepts and individual experiences.
Similar to how philosophers use analogies to explain complex ideas, my work uses pop culture references to translate grand, global problems into something more digestible. These references can evoke emotional responses or provoke thought by connecting with people’s existing knowledge and experiences. By doing so, I aim to create a sense of familiarity and urgency, making these large-scale issues feel more immediate and relevant to the viewer’s own life.
I also recognize that a lot of my personal taste and background shapes the references I choose. I still tend to use media and cultural elements that are close to me, but I’m always trying to expand my knowledge and explore new forms of media. For example, when working on themes like nuclear war, there’s a rich history of films from the Cold War era – especially black-and-white movies like Dr. Strangelove (1964)which I sometimes find challenging to watch at first but since I know they are crucial to understanding the subject, it pushes me to discover and learn.
You’ve worked in many group exhibitions, like Kiblix and The Wrong Biennale. How do these experiences of collaborating with other artists affect your solo work?
Group shows help me expand my network and often inspire new ideas. Seeing my art next to other artists’ work allows me to see it in a broader context, which can be eye-opening and inspiring.
These shows, both online and in real life, help me understand how my pieces interact with others and give me new perspectives on my own art. It also shows me where my work fits into current trends and where I can improve.
I especially appreciate the online exhibitions for their unique website designs. This is always a great inspiration for me.
Looking ahead, are there any new themes or projects you’re excited to explore? Where do you see your art going in the future?
The classic dilemma – so many ideas, so little time. I’m working on optimizing my process to maximize productivity because I feel incredibly privileged to be able to do what I love for a living. This passion drives me to continually explore new topics.
Right now, my mind is completely absorbed by the project I’m working on. I can’t wait to see where it leads. I also have three new projects in the works, each with completely different themes. While these will be commissioned works rather than purely personal projects, I still have a lot of creative freedom to shape them.
I’m excited to dive into these new ideas and further develop my visual style. My goal is to refine and evolve my work, pushing the boundaries of my creativity with each new piece.
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