Fascinations: Exprmntl.cz

This short vertical video presents the library of the Broumov monastery, combining documentary elements with 3D animation and synthetic commentary with a tinge of music. The internal directorial dialogue reflects Kohout’s own works of art exhibited as part of the Ora et lege project, which related contemporary art to the culture and teachings of the Benedictines.“One of the thematic areas of Ora et lege is a secular or rather an ambiguous relationship to the Church (Ed Atkins, Martin Kohout), which on the one hand honors its tradition and history, but on the other hand prefers or professes secular humanist ideals.”---Source: Exhibiton Review Ora et Lege https://kubaparis.com/archive/ora-et-lege

In this silent visual poem, the massive body of a bull appears on the table of a meticulous taxidermist, having died in the hot sun in the middle of a bullfighting arena. Working with the body of an untamed animal, the man is inwardly transformed and finds in the animal's skin a way to cope with his own mortality and the transience of life.“It’s the story of a double fate, the one of the man and the one of the bull, both doomed to succumb to their own restless natures.”---Source: Director's Note

The musical compilation of five performers is complemented by haptic images of sculptural objects, where the author emphasizes the materiality of the fabric. In the wake of the current ecological crisis, the film outlines a surreal world in which the imaginations of new organisms materialize.“Michaela Rožnovská sculptural objects, in collaboration with Martin Dominik Kratochvíl, make imaginations of new animals on earth visible, based on abstracted shapes of plants or the simplest organisms living on this planet. They present themselves as heirs of our culture, mythology and religion.”---Source: https://invenio.nusl.cz/record/501818?ln=cs

A visual essay accompanied by ambient electronica presents a virtual environment that only seemingly resembles our everyday world. 3D digital objects composed of both technological and organic structures create a dystopic unfamiliar landscape from which all human traces have disappeared a long time ago. “The design process reflects my views on various topics, which are significant to me, at the moment of creation, and which I try to resolve within myself, subconsciously or perhaps subliminally.” ---Source: Interview: The virtual world of thoughts: Artist Kristýna Sidlárová presents her project Digital Climate. Novy Zine 1. https://novyzine.com/Digital-Climate

This short hybrid essay based on French philosopher Paul Virilio's theory of “dromology” follows a racecar driver named Irina, who enjoys life in the fast lane more than anything else, and a French expert who explains how speed and velocity have always been fundamental factors of political power. The result is a reflection on both the practical and ideological aspects of speed and how velocity relates to gravity, the human experience, presence, and power-driven practices.“It would be a mistake to forget that wealth is an aspect of speed. One usually assumes that power is linked to wealth. In my opinion, power is first linked to speed. Wealth only comes afterwards.”

How do locations of iconic scenes in Czechoslovak classic cinema look like today? This film makes use of soundtracks to transfer viewers into the classic works of cinema of the past millennium, while, by way of contrasting footage of today’s real look of the places, it builds a provocative bridge between the past decades and contemporary times. “We only serve tap water with coffee.” ---Source: Film Inheritence / in Empty Location / And what about you, Mireček? (7:36 - 7:39)

A jumble of images of the seashore, grassy plains, and dense forests merges into one blurred image on the time-damaged film frame, creating an associative diary of impressions and memory fragments that pass through our minds as unpredictably as waves flowing into each other on the beach.“A short February sketch from the Baltic coast.”---Author of quote: Peter Podolský

Like at the New Year’s Eve, showers of colourful light cut through the darkness. While fireworks dissolve into nothing after a thunderous sound, shattered glass leaves material artifact. Sharp pieces then become a reminder of the real track that fireworks leave in the sky. “I have always been fascinated with fireworks. So I decided to portray its immitation.” ---Source: Z. Picpauer https://fud.ujep.cz/sites/digitalni-media/student/zdenek-picpauer/

Rapper Čavalenky tells the story of the oak forest. A story of trees whose roots date back to the time before the Anthropocene and whose wood helped humanity achieve the most fundamental historical breakthroughs. Trees, whose value we perceive only through its market potential because they're only worth something to us when they're cut down, chopped, and sold. “Trees are not silent. They're telling us what happened. Over the years, the memory of nature has become embedded in them.”

This combined film melds together not only different techniques but also different thematic topics. The titular mythical figure is just one of the actors in this dreamworld speaking to a contemporary audience in codes of media and narratives that are dear to it. Like a vision or nightmare trapped in the loop of a computer prism.>The frozen white noise, static snow >That is your memory >Although I know we'll never meet >You're in every part of me.---Source: http://marinah.eu/stuff.html

A modern-day aborigine, alone on a deserted planet, surrounded by cold nature, builds a new world from the remnants of an extinct civilization. This surreal audiovisual work reflects on the question of human existence when the world is on the verge of destruction, evoking the mourning of an activist artist over an ecological catastrophe.“The motto of the Native character, who wanders the landscape with unbounded imagination, is to translate sentiment into creative new approaches. This is probably the only way to cope with the current state of affairs.”---Source: Comment on the video

Blurring the lines between documentary and fiction, this recent work by Michal Mitro presents a new semblance of our future world in which energy, as a universal and indestructible force, determines the order of global activities and relationships. The film is a reflection on what a post-capitalist society can look like when energy justice prevails and when both human and extra-human factors are involved.“The visual language of this work juxtaposes the workings of society where energy justice has been established through speculative archaeological research conducted in a contemporary communal garden from the viewpoint of future's utopia.”---Source: https://dspace.vutbr.cz/xmlui/handle/11012/195152?locale-attribute=pl

This experimental work from duo Alexandra Morales and Georgy Bagdasarov resembles a digital theatrical performance that plays out on a computer screen. The inner monologue of a philosopher of morphology, artificially created from neural networks, generates texts in the paradigms of Vilem Flusser, Günther Anders, Walter Benjamin, Hannah Arendt, Byung-Chul Han and many others and is managed by a human operator who explores the possibilities of generative system performativity. „The performance presents an attempt to peer critically into the black box of individual generative models, but questions remain as to whether in the end their program has simply been expanded with more or less likely configurations and at what price technology brings these new possibilities.“

In her intimate film-poem, the auteur uses abstract paintings as a means to observe the changing forest landscape. What starts off as green and strikingly familiar is later struck by fire and burned to a crisp with ashes becoming an integral part of its new form. Can the land victimized by a destructive force rise up from the ashes like a phoenix and be reborn anew?“Just as I am now composing words for myself, I was composing particles of dust side by side in an attempt to understand how things relate to one another. Minerals of ash that move in the form of our needs.”

An audiovisual essay using a digitized, 8mm format that addresses questions of what the essence of contemporary art is and who it's made for. The film, which is divided into nine chapters, is based on practical experience and the works that are on display in the Gandy Gallery in Bratislava. It examines the relationship between the artwork as a whole and its features, signatures, and also institutional background.“The works of art resemble the things around us, mysteriously reflecting reality. Institutions are also similar to the objects we know. They mirror the way we act.”

Time is not linear, but rather a loop that has no beginning or end. Life doesn't move forward, but instead zigzags back and forth between what we want and what we’re meant to do. This is why sometimes we find ourselves at a crossroads in the middle of the night with nothing left but to ponder which of the three paths we must take as the rain washes down on us. “Whenever I take a look at myself, I always wish I loved myself more.”