INTERNATIONAL TEST SITE Z-1 is the art project of Dragan Ilic. The project provides a unique opportunity for Belgrade audiences to interact with an international group of artists and scientists, theoreticians, and media experts on the vanguard of innovation.

ITS Z-1 launched in May 2007 with “Art, Body and Technology,” a 2-day series of performances, presentations, and discussions. The event began with the work of Stelarc, internationally renowned Cypriot-born Australian artist recognized as one of the most important body-bio-performance artists whose works are represented in numerous galleries and museums around the world. He is the Principal Research Fellow, Digital Research Unit, in the Department of Visual and Performing Arts at Nottingham Trent University. In 1997 he was appointed Honorary Professor of Art and Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University.
Stelarc uses his own body as a medium of artistic expression. The work presented at ITS-Z1 was an investigation into his ongoing thesis that the body is obsolete and must be augmented or re-articulated so that it can keep up with current technological innovations. Stelarc refers to his body as “the body” and uses it as a bio-political space for interventions through medical and other advanced technologies. Stelarc's work broadens the field of art, reaching inside of the body, its systems of regeneration, reproduction and reprogramming of tissue, in practices considered taboo even in the most radical avant-garde art circles. Stelarc gave a presentation of his artwork, accompanied by a lecture titled “Alternating Anatomical Architectures: Plasticized Bodies, Partial Life, Multiplied Organs and the Extra Ear.” Audiences were able to see Stelarc’s work and get involved in discussion with him through participation in various interactive events.

Following Stelarc, the second day of the event featured projects by artists and experimenters from a wide range of backgrounds. Included in the line-up were the works of: Katerina G, Kostas Tzimulis, Ioanna Kyrka, Kiki Psarov, Dragan Ilic, Stella Mourogianni, Marianne K, Tarin and Bob, Era Milivojevic and Snezana Arnautovic, and Noa Trister.

Since ITS-Z1 opened its doors, we have seen the vibrant creation of individual and collaborative art projects from the ephemeral performances of students from Academy of Fine Arts, Athens, curated by Professor Janis Melanitis, to the genital art of Aleksadra Čalić and Marko Kovačič in Gynealogia Dyslectica, Curated by Olja Nikolić Kia, to the opening of originally constructed and designed sleeping capsles. ROCKET #9 culminated their ten-year project on the grounds of ITS-Z1 with a multi-media event that included concerts, onsite cooking, Tagtool drawing projections, and the actual launch of the Rocket #9 built by Boris Hoppek. And the exhibition “Cooperation, not Corporations / The Increased Potential of Art” showcased the artists Elisabeth Penker, Eleana Louka, Freek Lomme, Interacting Arts, Dušica Dražić and Sam Hopkins, Danilo Prnjat, Ranko Travanj, Tanja Juričan, Tanja Marković and Maja Mirković, Société Réaliste, Chto Delat, Rainer Ganahl, Jenny Marketou, Reality Check – Art and Activims (Reader,Vladan Jeremic, Madeleine Park, Rena Raedle and Katarina Popović), Raimi Gbadamosi, Bona Park and Hyunjoo Byeon, Marina Gržinič, Aina Šmid and Siniša Ilić.

ITS-Z1 has become a leader in experimental art in the region and will continue to invite cultural antagonists, revolutionary artists, scientists, and thinkers looking for a space to create works responsive to the ever-changing needs of the world of today.