Death of the Audience, 2018
Death of the Audience was first published on 22nd February 2018 as a manifesto on Facebook. Brajnović later upgraded it to a spatial/sound installation consisting of an unusual metal chair covered in fur and a text the visitors listen to when they sit on it. The text, a manifesto announcing the death of the audience, is read by Croatian Radio announcer Željko Tomac, whose professional diction gives the serious contents an appropriate official tone.
Brajnović predicts the death of the audience, and opens up many different possibilities in the text. He is convinced that technological development is accelerating humanity’s road to Armageddon, whereupon every individual will have to take responsibility for their (in)action at the final judgment. The artist posits that then, actually now, there will no longer be a division into active creators, artists, and passive consumers, audience.
He links the above with the well-known utterance by German conceptual artist Joseph Beuys from the 70s: Every person is an artist. Beuys was convinced that art is the crucial activity to create a more developed society from individuals. Such a society will come about when every living person creatively and artistically participates in building a social sculpture, the highest form of society according to Beuys.
There will be no more audience, everyone will be a creator.
Dictatorship of Love, 2017/18
Žižek’s idea of a kind dictator as the only solution for humanity prompted Brajnović to create the phrase Dictatorship of Love. At first glance, both seem like oxymorons, clever nonsense, but according to the artist's interpretation, the Dictatorship of Love will soon happen for real. Brajnović understands love as the main guideline of spiritual space. With the approaching Armageddon and, according to the artist's prediction, the final victory of God, the era of the Dictatorship of (God's) Love will begin.
The meaningful inscription in heavy lead letters belongs to a set of works in which Brajnović puts forward his thesis on the future of humanity alongside those of leading philosophers. Here he acts as someone who, through artistic means, participates not only in thinking about society, but also providing answers. These are grounded in his worldview and implemented in the form of inscriptions, videos, spatial installations, manifestos...
Kind Dictator, 2006
In a small antique shop in Trieste, Tomislav found a booklet featuring a cover on which Stalin is surrounded by various public figures who had disappeared or were killed during his purges. In the same pile, he also found an old copy of Mittelmeerflora, which contains illustrations and names of 16 plants from the Mediterranean.
The artist intervened on these original documents by screen-printing on them the inscription Kind Dictator, alluding to Slavoj Žižek and his idea of a benevolent dictator as the only salvation for humanity. The bucolic image of Mediterranean plants, the kind and gentle mother nature, is combined with the dictator, the sinister image of humanity.
I didn’t Vote, My Fault, 2017
The work was published on Facebook on 22nd May 2017 as a video documenting the writing of a text on an old mirror.
It is a humorous commentary on the accusation that those who do not vote are to blame for the state of affairs. The artist rejects this simplistic logic, as he does not believe that the mere act of voting changes matters. At the same time, he also declares that he does not see any political option to whom he would give his (only) vote.
All the Notions are Distorted, 2021
Brajnović made a series of works in which he painted on rotten fruit, quince, banana. The banana dried and shrunk over time, and with it the text.
This natural process emphasized the meaning of written words more and more plastically. All the notions are distorted/disfigured must be read in the context of the artist’s works, where he points out that humanity over the centuries has placed layer upon layer of incorrect interpretations on top of basic truths. This has distorted the truth which is now disfigured.
Graph, 2019
The graph shows the artist's worldview and artistic program in the form of a mind map, a visualization of the history of the present state and the future to come. It is a graphic representation of the artist's interpretation of the history of Christianity, showing the causes and consequences of human choices and, with the direct link between man and machine, the final consequence, the loss of humanity.
The work also exists as a video in which the artist explains his position while drawing the graph.
War Is Not the Natural Condition of Mankind, 2018
5:02 min
The video was created in 2018, when Brajnović came across Julian Assange, David Horowitz and Slavoj Žižek debating on the World Tomorrow show on RT. They talked about the state of affairs, the future, USA, world powers, religion. Brajnović was intrigued by Horowitz's statement (which wasn’t opposed by Žižek or Assange) that war is the natural state of humanity. He reacted by a media manipulation. Through editing, he included himself in the recording, briefly presenting his own solution: the Kingdom of God, which he sees as the natural state of humanity.
Brajnović, like many artists through time, has always dealt with issues of society and its future, a topic he has increasingly focused on since the beginning of the pandemic. This crisis once again placed philosophers in the public’s limelight, debating and thinking about the future of society in various media. Brajnović has always followed the debates of contemporary thinkers and internet allowed him to have access to a lot of content, so he began to listen more intensely to philosophers, especially the most influential ones, Slavoj Žižek first and foremost among them. During his numerous appearances in the time of the pandemic, Brajnović realized that Žižek is not capable of thinking about the future because he categorically rejects the existence of God.
The video was first published on Facebook on 25th May 2018.
World Civil War, 2017
Brajnović received black, white and pink spray as a gift from Mladen Stilinović, one of Croatia’s most important conceptual artists. He made a series of freehand inscriptions on various fabrics (in this case, a tablecloth found at a dump on Susak). This was his way of paying tribute to his recently deceased colleague and a friend who, since the 60s, used text as a key element of his work, often sprayed onto various surfaces.
The inscription World Civil War, is a commentary on the media war, so prevalent on social networks in recent years, alongside the loss of opinion leaders, authorities, truth and global expansion of unverifiable, untrue and intentionally manipulated data. In fact, a catastrophic state of society, which the Internet has made visible and, above all, encouraged the general polarization and radicalization of attitudes and methods of expression.
Direct Link, 2017
The title is taken from Žižek's short text about a direct link between our brains and digital space, which he sees coming in the near future. To Žižek’s text Brajnović added an abstracted sculpture of a wide-open head, which directly symbolizes the outside’s intrusion into the inner human world. The direct link, obviously, means reading our thoughts, memories, seeing our mental images. According to Brajnović cyborg will be robbed of basic human qualities, free will and completely open to the manipulations by the masters of the world.
Direct Art: Facebook 2015–2022
The advent of Facebook gave Brajnović the ideal medium for the part of his artistic practice where he combines the visual with the textual and involves the audience. He began to use it as an independent medium with works specifically created for it and even more often his Facebook posts form parts of larger projects. Sometimes it is a video documenting an event in real space, but mainly it is a photo of the artist's work process. Sometimes it is staged and made just for posting on Facebook and almost always as a text. These can be short, but are generally longer, in the form of essays, manifestos.
Since the 90s, direct contact with the public has been an important element in several of his works performed in urban public spaces, and Facebook gave him a chance to do so in completely new ways. Not only was he able to reach a much wider, its comments section allowed him to enhance his communication strategies. Due to the specificity of the social media platform, communication is often almost direct and fast, without polishing of what is written, without time for thought, without excessive reflection and correction. However, also due to Brajnović's often problematic texts and weighty, substantive answers, real in-depth debates often develop between different stakeholders. Brajnović actually succeeds within a superficial and often quarrelsome medium, to stimulate weighty discussions about things that are difficult to understand.
Exhibited is a diverse selection of 12 Brajnović’s Facebook projects between 2015 and 2022.









