2001, action, object and video (4:34)

The concept developed as a result of an idle conversation in May 2001, regarding the daily news and political events, which at that time seemed to have potential to become history. We discussed the possibility of capturing the essence of the present time as a material substance and to document it without help of the standard means of recording.

First we established the name for the “essence” of the present time – ODEKAM (the first half of the name Macedonia in reverse), and also the name for the “site” where such matter can be captured – DONIA (the second half of the name Macedonia). For that purpose in the coming months OPA focused on constructing a special apparatus that we named HISTOMETAR. The name HISTOMETAR originates from two international words: HISTO = History; and METAR = Meter. The HISTOMETAR was able not only to capture and keep the ODEKAM but also to measure the specific amount.

After engineering the apparatus, OPA selected a moment from the immediate future (September 7th, 2001 during a mass protest in front of the House of the Parliament of Republic of Macedonia), with a high potential for a future historical reference. The action was not announced in advance in order to not disturb the “future” and also to function as part of a moment.

The ODEKAM is stored until the next investigations.

Photo documentation: Nebojša Vilić, Hristijan Sanev, Aleksandar Jovanov, Denis Saraginovski
Filming: Ratka Ilievska Lale, Marko Gjoković, Laze Šokovski
Thanks to: Nadica Kostoska, Carol Cho and the participants involved as OPA Monitors