When Slovenia was packing the exhibition of the best contemporary design in 2011 there was double modesty, both in title and in scale. The title was Silent Revolutions, and the content was literary defined by the scale of few travelling boxes: what fits in gets to be exhibited. So, when Slovenia travelled to London, Eindhoven and Milano (and will continue to Moscow) it was like going to the desert island or projecting the time-capsule to travel through space. What does a curious visitor to the exhibition see when he or she opens a box? The skis that make it possible to jump over 200 metres, a chair that wriggles free of the force of gravity by its desire to dance on one hand, the lamp that strives to be thinner than the light or the music machine, whose massive weight is chased away by the sublime quality of the music that it emits, not to mention ultra light aircraft that soars high above the clouds and the hybrid motorboat that can capture solar power in order to navigate the vast expanses of the sea. There’s something deeply vertical in all those attempts to escape from the force of gravity.

As long as we are confined to the ground, we dream about going to the moon; but the moment we take off in a simple balloon, not to mention a plane, rocket or satellite, our notion of normal concreteness becomes radically abstract and our supposed reality virtual. Ascent into the clouds not only facilitates better orientation amidst valleys and streets, it also opens the possibility of radical ethical and artistic gestures, such as Mondrian’s colour avenues or Malevich’s black squares. Only the starry sky truly opens the moral law in us, only ascension along the vertical gives proper meaning to the ethical imperative. So when a curious eye takes a look around the contemporary Slovenian artistic landscape, what arises most persistently are exactly such attempts to lift the body above the earth, to escape it from the force of gravity and take the gaze to the stars – in order to better see the vertiginous depth bellow.