Josip Brandis

From traffic signs to other realities The starting point for my artistic actions is a traffic sign, i.e. traffic signs.  Using the objects from everyday life and  changing them, I consciously introduce them into the process of redefinition. Because of that, their entire being has essentially changed – from signs they have become symbols. I would say that reliance on the tradition of Duchamp's ready-mades have been recognized, but only conditionally. Following the path from maintaining the original mark on a traffic sign, through combining several marks on a single sign surface, and breaking its firm morphological structure, to drilling of abstract and almost ornamental representations, my signs begin to constitute a thick web of meanings. Embracing old and abandoned traffic signs, I refuse to use them in the condition in which I found them, and start to process them in a very self-conscious and artistic way. Change their semantic content and subjecting them to the process of metamorphosis, seemingly simple objects become aesthetic objects that still convey the message, but this time it is the aesthetic message