The Totalitarian Society of the Image

Zbyněk Baladrán / Czech Republic / 2025 / World Premiere / 13 min.

synopsis

The third part of the trilogy on representation, art, and politics is a collage of images and quotations with a congenial sound design by Ian Mikyska. While The Signature of Certain Things (2022) explored the role of artworks and institutions in society and The Commodity Catalogue (2023) focused on the commodity nature of artistic creation, the final part offers subversion rather than synthesis: it reveals the contradictions of artistic analysis, which do not lead to a clear political position but instead undermine themselves.

“The silent imperative of accumulation now reigns supreme and absorbs everything, including hope. It is a new type of religiosity that interprets the world, permeates everything, and is capable of justifying anything. Even this modest dissenting film, seeking through its pre- declared resignation the possibility of expression, moves nothing, illuminates nothing. It too will be absorbed.”

biography

Zbyněk Baladrán (born 1973) is an artist, curator, exhibition architect, and director. His work explores the contradictions of the contemporary world and ways of understanding them through art and artistic practice. He regularly presents his films at Ji.hlava IDFF, where he won the Award for Best Czech Experimental Documentary Film for his films The Commodity Catalogue (2023) and Catastrophe (2020).