Presentation of the project "Lapsus Memoriae" of the group "Urtica"
Urtica group started the realization of its projects with a multimedia work called "Urtica Medicamentum Est" ("nettle is a medicine") in 1999. The group is devoted to the researches of new media artistic possibilities, especially in the domain of a relation between art and society. Urtica group members: Violeta Vojvodić, Eduard Balaž and Olivera Stošić.
The project "Lapsus Memoriae" / slip of the memory, has been created in the "genre" of a video game that imitates one of the most popular party games known as memory or a game of memorizing. The project of Urtica group "toys" with the names of war operations and the ways media consumers memorize them ("Amber fox" / Macedonia 2001; "Shining hope" Yugoslavia 1999; "Endless justice"/ Afghanistan 2001), etc. with a view to call attention to the media presentation of a war or war operations. Their name meanings refer to innocence that is completely in the opposition to their substance and the consequences they produce. Media insisting on the importance of "signifier", i.e. its dominance over "signified", causes slip of the memory - "Lapsus Memoriae", i.e. an unconscious erasure of all negative connotations connected to the
concept they refer to. The very phenomenon of a game/entertainment is an important "genre" and semantic element of the project.