Tomislav Medak
Tomislav Medak (1973) is a philosopher with interests in contemporary political philosophy, media theory and aesthetics.
He earned a degree in philosophy and German studies from the University of Zagreb/Croatia (1997). His theoretical interests are in contemporary political philosophy, media theory and aesthetics. He has co-ordinated the theory program and publishing activities of the MaMa – Multimedia Institute, Zagreb since 2000. He is a free software advocate and project leader of the Croatian Creative Commons team.
He has (co-)curated and (co-)organized a number of conferences and exhibitions dealing with political theory, commons or cultural policy, most recently the international conference Economy of Crisis Capitalism and Ecology of the Commons, Zagreb (2012), the international conference Open Institutions – Institutional Imagination and Cultural Public Sphere, Zagreb (2011), and an exhibition on the history of hacking System.Hack, Zagreb, Belgrade/Serbia and Novi Sad/Serbia (2005–2007), which he created in collaboration with Marcell Mars. In 2012 he helped organizing and co-ordinating the Croatian protests against the international intellectual property treaty ACTA.
Since 2001 he has been working with the Zagreb-based experimental theatre collective BADco. as a performer, dramaturg and director. Most recently as dramaturg of the theatre production Black and Forth (2012), performer and dramaturg of the theatre production The League of Time (2010), co-director and performer of the theatre production 1 poor and one 0 (2008). Together with the collective he has created an interactive installation work Responsiblity for Things Seen, initially presented at the Croatian exhibition at the Venice Biennale in 2011 and since then in Oslo/Norway, Zagreb, Rijeka/Croatia and Ljubljana/Slovenia. He is also a volunteer for the urban activist initiative Right to the City Zagreb.
Publications
- "Multimedia Institute - mi2", ISEA Newsletter #93, Jun-Aug 2003.
- Medak, et al., Sloboda stvaralaštvu, section in zarez 7:146, Zagreb, 2005, pp 21-28. [1] (Croatian)
- Medak, et al., System.hack(), Zagreb: Mama, 2006, 96 pp. Exhibition catalogue. (Croatian)/(English)
- editor, with Petar Milat, Idea of Radical Media / Ideja radikalnih medija, Zagreb: Multimedia Institute, 2013, 256 pp. (English)/(Croatian)
- editor, with Petar Milat, Prospects of Arkzin / Izgledi Arkzina, Zagreb: Arkzin and Multimedia Institute, 2013, 48 pp. With DVD Arkzin Digital Archive / Digitalna arhiva Arkzina. (English)/(Croatian)
- with Marcell Mars and Manar Zarroug, "Public Library (An Essay)", Memory of the World blog, 27 Oct 2014. On the idea of public library.
Translations
- Sassen, Saskia. (2003). Protugeografije globalizacije. Trans. Danijela Sestrić, Jakov Vilović, Tomislav Medak. Zagreb: Multimedia Institute. 119 pp. (Croatian)
- Nancy, Jean-Luc. (2004). Dva ogleda. Razdjelovljena zajednica. O singularnom pluralnom bitku. Trans. Tomislav Medak. Zagreb: Multimedia Institute & Arkzin. 148 pp. (Croatian)
- Brunkhorst, Hauke. (2004). Solidarnost. Od građanskog prijateljstva do globalne pravne zajednice. Trans. Tomislav Medak. Belgrade: Belgrade Circle; Zagreb: Multimedia Institute. 280 pp. (Croatian)
- Critical Art Ensemble. (2005). Molekularna invazija. Trans. Tomislav Medak. Zagreb: Multimedia Institute. 144 pp. (Croatian)
- Wark, McKenzie. (2006). Hakerski manifest. Trans. Tomislav Medak. Zagreb: Multimedia Institute. 154 pp. (Croatian)
- Hardt, Michael; Antonio Negri. (2009). Mnoštvo. Rat i demokracija u doba Imperija. Trans. Tomislav Medak and Petar Milat. Zagreb: Multimedia Institute. 404 pp. (Croatian)
- Balibar, Étienne. (2011). Nasilje i civilnost. Wellekova predavanja. Trans. Tomislav Medak. Belgrade: Cetre for Media and Communication; Zagreb: Multimedia Institute. 196 pp. (Croatian)
- Deleuze, Gilles; Herman Melville. (2014). Bartleby ili formula; Perovođa Bartleby. Trans. Tomislav Medak and Maja Šoljan. Novi Sad & Zagreb: kuda.org & Multimedia Institute. 101 pp. 2-up version. (Serbo-Croatian)
Interviews
- "Multimedia Institute (mi2): Zeljko Blace, Marcell Mars & Tomi Medak interviewed by Joanne Richardson", subsol 2, Apr 2002.
- Katarina Lovrečić, "Tomislav Medak: Knjižnice trebaju i onu nevidljivu masu knjižničara uvidjeti kao saveznika", GKR, 20 Aug 2013. (Croatian)
