Tetris

In the work of Sašo Vrabič, the sinful use of extracts from the media world intertwines with images and sounds from the private world. The computer, which today we can no longer avoid, has greatly marked the way of life, work and thinking of Vrabič's generation.

Tetris, perhaps the most famous and popular computer game, originated in Russia. It was created by Alexei Payitnov, Dmitri Pavlovski and Vadim Gerasimov of the Soviet Academy of Science in 1985. Tetris could only enter in 'capital game' by sneaking through a hole in the Iron Curtain and making its success on the Western market. But the success of the game also exacted a price. Snatching at profits led to clashes between the authors of the game, which was created on the basis of love of computer programming. Meanwhile, it was finding homes around the world. Therefore, Tetris is a game that unites and divides. Its creation and market success are an ideal example of the stereotype about the idealistic East being used, distributed, and profited from, by the Western capitalist market.

Nowadays, Tetris is still played by everybody, no matter whether they come from the East or the West. The left and right sides of the triptych point at the universal character of the game, which induces the same pleasure in all parts of the world that are steeped in technology. Tetris is a game that can be enjoyed in a group, but on the other hand, it also causes alienation and retreat into another world. The computer game occupies the central coloured field in Vrabič's triptych. The music starts when the viewer steps in front of the triptych; it is similar to the melody accompanying Tetris. This adaptation of a Russian folk song helps us move even more easily into the Tetris world, and it makes us think: 'Do we still control the computer and technology, or did they devour us and now control us instead?'

Petja Grafenauer

Sašo Vrabič is basically occupied with the image-generating mechanisms of our contemporary society; he recycles images from the mass media and places them into other contexts and relations. The Tetris Triptich is a traditional oil-canvas painting inspired by media images and an abstract close-up of the game itself. In the Triptich he cites playfully but also forebodingly the story of one of the world’s best known computer games whose birth has a strong link to the history of technology – to industrial theft during the cold-war period. Alenka Gregorič summarizes rather insightfully: “His focus is on re-interpreting the response of an individual towards life in contemporary society, which is saturated with new technologies.”

Edit Molnár

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