RADVLAD

video , performance , Media , LHBTIQ+ , Internet , fotografie , Digitale technologie , Audiovisueel

RADVLAD is the artistic moniker of multimedia artist Vladimir Vidanovski (1996) from North Macedonia. His work deals the flux of identity and truth due to the manipulative properties of the image, and how image culture circulates and evolves in unique ways during digital times. He obtained his BA of Design in the photography department of the Royal Academy of Art in The Hague, while also working in the fields of fashion photography.

His practice involves building worlds and creating characters through photography, motion imagery, sound, CGI and performance. With this, he tells stories often mood from his own memories, desires and observations from his Online wanderings. This results in works that question reality by using technological advancements, identity politics, queerness, and the vastness of the human mind as motives.

In 2024 he was granted the Artist Start grant from Mondriaan Fonds. In 2021 he was selected and awarded for his graduation work at the 2021 edition of Steenbergen Stipendium in Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam. Other awards include a prize for his short film Point me to Utopia in the 2020 edition of Roots Film Festival in The Hague, and the Emerging Talent and Audience Award for his film Two Bird with One Stone for the 10 Minute Challenge in the Queer Film Festival Utrecht 2024 made with Elio Troullakis.

**Reduce artifacts (2022 - ongoing)** - Reduce Artifacts (2022–ongoing) explores queerness, digital culture and the politics of 'otherness'. For this project, RADVLAD developed fictional 3D characters and, in collaboration with friends, created quasi-mythological figures such as witches, werewolves and anime characters, which he situates within everyday environments. The tension between the fairytale and the banality of ordinary life reveals how marginalized identities are cast as 'other' in daily life. By blending photography with 3D rendering, RADVLAD creates an alienating inbetween world that occupies a space between documentation and fantasy. Each portrayed character emerges from conversations about how it feels to be made into 'the other'. In this way, Reduce Artifacts operates on two levels: as a portrait and as a shared perspective on the experiences of marginalized communities.

**Reduce artifacts (2022 - ongoing)** - Public presentation of 'Reduce artifacts' at the Prospects 2026 section of Art Rotterdam, Rotterdam Ahoy.

**Portals (2025)** - How many divas live inside of you? Is one of them your own mother, a drag queen, perhaps a famous YouTuber, a TikTok star, your child self, or the future you? How often do they scream, sing, cry, or dance with you? Which parts of you do they make up? Which parts of them do YOU make up? Grab RADVLAD’s hand as they take you through Portals to digital fantasy worlds. Feast your ears and eyes on this theatrical pop rendition of the queer protagonist’s journey through love, guilt, heartbreak, coming out, aging and rebirth. The TV screen on stage becomes a portal, revealing the different personas that make up RADVLAD and the worlds they inhabit. As they sing and dance through these fable-like universes, they whisper stories of a confused Zillenial, a queer North Macedonian expat, the digital era, and the ever-changing self. Portals is a multimedia project consisting of video art, music and performance.

**Two Birds with One Stone (2024)** - (Film stills) - Two queer people encounter each other at different cruising locations across three different countries. In the light of the death and resurrection of Jesus, as celebrated in Orthodox Christianity, they draw parallels with their queer experience of self-reinvention, contemplate on the metaphysics of death, and succumb to a mutually aided experience of rebirth. The narrative unfolds in an often chaotic, intuitional style, reflective of the process of development and filming, woven together by a voiceover of philosophical reflections. Made together with Elio Trollakis as part of GROSS&DOOMED collective

**RADVLAD (2023 - ongoing)** - RADVLAD is an audiovisual + performative work that explores the different aspects of my identity by reimagining myself as a popstar character, investigating the ability to manipulate our physical presence through cyberspace. I perform as the shapeshifting persona of RADVLAD in the videos and performances, allowing my body to become a vessel for narratives relating to identity politics and pop culture that the viewers are invited to participate in by their spectatorship. While performing as RADVLAD, I become a fictional character inspired by digital media, a delusional popstar driven by Internet co nsumption, an ‘idol’ fueled by the Millennial need for validation. I share parts of RADVLAD online, attempting to give the character(s) a sort of status, where online praise, presence and validation solidifies the existence RADVLAD.

**HEART (2024)** - Level 2 of the RADVLAD musical universe.

**A.E.O.I.A (2023)** - Level 1 of the RADVLAD musical universe.

**A CAUTIONARY TALE (2022)** - As we spiral deeper into times of digitalization, a new framework for perception emerges. One that is built on the notions of the Instalook, the TikTok star, anime protagonist, video game universe. We look at the world through a digital lens, we speak with the slang and intonation of an ASMR roleplay YouTube video. Our screens serve as an emporium for new perspectives, with screen based media becoming the dominating fount of information, and the Internet its mecca. Mythology becomes mundanity, and new mythologies culminate through an Instagram post. A CAUTIONARY TALE questions digital media’s validity and its trickeries, presented through a video set in a quasi-virtual universe nestled between the real and the fictional, heaven and hell, dream and nightmare. Viewers are confronted with the sway of the digital image, and its impact on our memory and perception.

**KLUB RODA (2022)** - Created during Opovo 2022: Roda residency in Opovo, Serbia, the project presents images of Opovo manipulated with CGI, presented as real photographs. Presented in the village’s sole gallery with a text describing KLUB RODA as a once-existing place in the mid 90s, it walks the fine line between fictional and documentary photography, aiming to diverge Yugoslavia’s history from its actual. By injecting a then-war-ridden Serbia with a faux timeline, specifically one of western influences and ideals through such pictures, I question the persuasion of photographs, and explore how far I can stretch my imaginary tale of a queer club in a Serbian village.

**What are you looking for? (2021)** - Sometimes I look for comfort in the digital memorabilia buried deep in my old hard drives. These images give access to worlds that seem sweeter than my own. My first digital drawings, computer games, family photos and videos, pixelated vlogs, low-quality sound recordings, PowerPoint presentations - they all give me the strange feeling of serenity that comes with memories, and the confrontation with my own existence; Knowingly accepting the passage of time, while staring right at its proof. In an attempt to reconnect with my inner child, I started revisiting my old computer files, when a narrative started to emerge. Each file became a building block, a jigsaw piece, allowing me to assemble the puzzle that is my screen-based upbringing. In the process I explored the ways digital media affected my own childhood, resulting in a visual narrative set in a space that drifts between truth and fantasy. This project was nominated and awarded at Steenbergen Stipendum 2021 in Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam.

What are you looking for? (2022) — **What are you looking for? (2021)** - Film stills

Amsterdam Fringe Festival 2025

Datum: 25-03-2026 t/m 13-09-2026

Locatie: Amsterdam Fringe Festival 2025

Within this period RADVLAD creates his first theatrical performance Portals as part of Amsterdam Fringe Festival 2025.

https://amsterdamfringefestival.nl/portals/

Mondriaan Fonds Artist Start grant

Datum: 03-04-2024 t/m 03-04-2025

Granted the artist start grant from Mondriaan Fonds for the period of early 2024 to early 2025. Presented the work Reduce artifacts as part of the Prospects 2026 show in Rotterdam Ahoy.

https://www.mondriaanfonds.nl/profiel/radvlad/

Two Birds with One Stone

Datum: 01-04-2024 t/m 31-07-2024

Locatie: Netherlands, Greece, North Macedonia

In samenwerking met: Elio Troullakis, GROSS&DOOMED

Two Birds with One Stone is a short film created with Elio Troullakis about two queer people encounter each other at different cruising locations across three different countries. The work was made for the 10-minute challenge at Queer Film Festival Utrecht 2024. This period marks the time when the work was filmed, edited and finally presented at QFFU 2024. It was awarded the Emerging director and Audience award.

Beyond provenance

Datum: 28-12-2023 t/m 18-04-2026

Locatie: Netherlands, Indonesia

In samenwerking met: wysiwyg cinema, Indeks Bandung, Stimuleringsfonds

Beyond Provenance is a transnational film collaboration between art collective Indeks from Bandung and screening platform wysiwyg from The Hague. The project reacts to the Dutch government's recent intent (2023) of giving back looted objects to Indonesia. The main output of this project are three short films inspired by artefacts as part of the reparation. I was paired up with Indonesian artist Dyantini Adeline to create a short film titled The Stone That Remembers, premiering in April 2026.

https://after-care.id/en/projects

Opovo 2022: Roda

Datum: 07-08-2022 t/m 21-08-2022

Locatie: Kulturni centar Opovo

2 week residency in Opovo Serbia, where I was invited alongside other artists to create new works, exchange ideas and connect. The final result was an exhibition in the Jovan Popović gallery in Opovo.

Steenbergen Stipendium 2021

Datum: 21-10-2021 t/m 28-11-2021

Locatie: Nederlands Fotomuseum

Nominated for the Steenbergen Stipendium 2021 Award for graduation work What are you looking for? in the Nederlands Fotomuseum in Rotterdam. Received honorary mention award.

https://steenbergen-stichting.eu/awards/2021/

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