We always emit huge arrays of data by just being present, breathing. Our mortals, our position in space, our glance and neural activity, and they all differ for each of us in each particular moment.
Some relations with devices that I have are actually not worth it. Checking social media or weather, making sure your tram will arrive in 2 min, in 1 min… And I feel some exposure to environment of data that I have a fast access to, that shifts my perception of reality: I found myself in a situation checking a map on the way from Narodni Trida to DAMU café even though I know it and it is straight… It seems for me extremely hard to divide my virtual and real presence, things I saw in real life and thing only seen on the screen.
“What real decisions are involved in participating in any of artificial, non human, technological construct?”
During the days I am seeing several messages about cookies over internet. When I researched this topic I have found that corporations make money on people, which are involved in just being present on web, and using applications on their smartphones or watches. And how information is given is done not to fit users needs, but need to track.
Ways of interaction, made simple and understandable in social media, and well beyond understanding from a first glance at software for working with visuals, 3d modeling apps. Working in those you are continuously building own patterns and schemes of interaction. We all use same swipe scrolls but all use different pipelines in photoshop.
I have a deep dissatisfaction with ways people interact with technologies these days.
Design of these interactions have been compiled for recent 20 years by gigantic corporations and we all experience it as given. It was hardly made for people to explore, but most likely to explore people.
Though I don’t want to get rid of all my tech devices, I realized that I need to get use of data that I “emit”. And I decided to build an environment, with which I can interact by using my data of being present. Certainly using technology as a resource in order to track myself, but tried to use data as raw as possible, giving it my interpretation.
DDDD
I have a strong passion to modernist architecture. I adore brutalist buildings around Prague, they remind me of home. I grew up in a post-soviet country and I saw similar approach everywhere. After the socialist regime has fallen in CR several buildings were demolished. Chemapol is yet another one which is most likely going to disappear. There is a huge demand of flats in Prague, and after covid restrictions it is more clear that the era of such massive office buildings is going to end soon.
Chemapol was made by a two female architects Zdenka Marie Novakova and Dagmar Setstakova, inspired by post-war buildings of Ludvig Mies van der Rohe. At the period of construction (1967-1970) architects collaborated with Italian company FEAL, that provided so-called “glass walls” technology innovative to the time . After decades it was built it got repainted by a french-jewish artist Yaakov Agamov. During period between 1968 and 1969 it accommodated several works of painters and sculptors. Though after soviet regime fallen Chemapol couldn’t handle the turn to capitalism and got sold part by part. There are several examples of construction sites sharing same destiny: Transgas, CETIN.
I decided to degrade, demolish the building, stretch it till it collapse. The first idea was to put a crawling structure on top o the building. A structure similar to mould, that you might not notice from the first site.
A paravan on another hand by design divides space. However the sculpture by providing a strong, nearly uncomfortable light also unites the space with it. This object was a part of a personal exhibition "B", it stands for Being. Being is what each person faces every day, however everyone's being is different. This work is trying to depict both the moment when one faces the being, which might be hard, uncomfortable, but it makes the surroundings clear at the same time, sheds the light.
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Benches in public spaces play a role of islands, which one can use to stop, take a rest from swimming in this ocean of information(see "Piercing through the data cloud" work of mine). They divide space into zones, create additional places for contemplation, create 'common ground" for the people to feel a part of the community, to get closer.
Though is a gallery space indeed public? It is open to the public with a given schedule of working hours and a custodian guarding the works, in theory anyone can come. Though people are visiting contemporary galleries, those white cubes not to be in unity as a society, but rather to contemplate artworks. Brian O'Doherty in his "Inside the white cube: The Ideology of Gallery Space" argues how such a minimalist by thought space, clean lines, white walls is shaping the by creating a controlled environment that influences both artist and the viewer. It demands a certain reverence and contemplation, positioning the artwork as a kind of sacred object. And for that moment of contemplation I would like to provide a viewing point, a perspective, a new system of coordinates that does not operate on its own but rather serves a purpose. A bench. Bench being a bridge between the spectator and art. A bridge that connects people in a microcosm of a tram stop. At the gallery.
Piercing Throught the Data Cloud is a site speciefic artwork that was done for the group exhibition Mimosa in 2022. The work consist of 3 spinning fan projectors that broadcasted a video representing the matter of diigtal space. In the dusty unclear pointcloud one could see digital device tags that were scanned at the Cafe above. The work continies my dive into the topic of digital/physical presence and is intended to be set live outputing device tags(bluetooth device names) of people at the exhibition without any additional imput from them.