Maruša Uhan
High-maintenance
High-maintenance (2022–) is an ode to weather and an abstract attempt to track and understand this omnipresent phenomenon. Through a collage of different facts about weather and weather-related changes, the video essay’s focus is predominantly on the human desire to observe, get to know and predict the weather.
Maruša Uhan, High-maintenance, video still, 2022. Courtesy of the artist.
Despite weather forecasting technology being rather advanced, weather forecasts often turn out to be never-ending games of chance, more akin to gambling than science. In fact, meteorological forecasting has given rise to a special kind of gambling – betting on weather. By researching this type of (illegal) betting in Cambodia and on the internet, Maruša Uhan explores the paradox of our urge to understand weather in combination with our absolute inability to control it.
Instead of the expected images of weather, the video consists of shots of foamy soap cyclones and storms created by revolving carwash brushes. The artist understands these as microsimulations of weather – the only spaces where humans have the local climate under complete control. The artificial environment, with its atmosphere and cyclicality, resembles a small storm that can not only be accurately predicted but also mechanically controlled down to the tiniest detail. The romantic slow-motion scenes of the scrubbing carwash brushes spinning carry a sentiment of melancholy that evokes intimate memories of rainy days, while the choreography of endless spins immerses us in the monotony of controlled chaos.
Instead of the expected images of weather, the video consists of shots of foamy soap cyclones and storms created by revolving carwash brushes. The artist understands these as microsimulations of weather – the only spaces where humans have the local climate under complete control. The artificial environment, with its atmosphere and cyclicality, resembles a small storm that can not only be accurately predicted but also mechanically controlled down to the tiniest detail. The romantic slow-motion scenes of the scrubbing carwash brushes spinning carry a sentiment of melancholy that evokes intimate memories of rainy days, while the choreography of endless spins immerses us in the monotony of controlled chaos.
Maruša Uhan (1994) is a graduate of the Minerva Art Academy in Groningen in the Netherlands. Her art practice is characterised by themes related to naivety, its gradual loss in the process of growing up and the eventual transformation into a socially desirable individual. Her works can be understood as a commentary on society’s stance and our everyday actions. She has exhibited her work in a variety of different exhibitions in the past years, among others in High-maintenance at the P74 gallery (2022), the online exhibition The Wrong Biennale (2022), at Galerija Nočna izložba Pešak (2022), and Kamera in Kino Šiška in Ljubljana (2021), IG Bildende Kunst in Vienna (2019), Simulaker in Novo mesto (2019), Art on the Edge in Leeuwarden (2018), Kolla festival, Steinfort Mirador in Luxembourg (2017) and Y2 in Groningen (2017). She was a resident of Rucka Artist Residency in Latvia in 2021, Open Studio, DobraVaga in Ljubljana in 2018, and Antropical in Luxembourg in 2017. Starting last year, she took over part of the organisation and curatorial work in the new gallery space Portal 2-7-7-7-8 in Ljubljana.
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