Performance/Contact Points

Esta intervenção inserida no projecto Contact Points, serviu como um ponto de conclusão do meu trabalho realizado em Praga.
Consistiu então na distribuição de panfletos que publicitavam produtos kitch, em abundância no mercado, mas desta vez, e só nesse dia, eram de borla.
Um exercício de confrontação e de teste ao poder de persuasão da imagem no consumidor.
Mais uma provocação.

“Olhe!
Em que banca posso levantá-lo?
…”

Aviso à navegação

Modo de explorar o espaço: seguir as datas do arquivo.

Obrigado pela paciência
A gerência

Nota introdutória

Este espaço on-line foi criado para mostrar o meu projecto pessoal de forma mais completa e organizada aos professores, uma vez que, é impossível neste momento, apresenta-lo pessoalmente no Porto, onde é devido e a quem de direito. Este projecto insere-se numa estrutura académica de avaliação pelo sistema tutório, existindo deste modo, a necessidade de apresentar resultados, embora não necessariamente conclusivos. Peço aos professores que considerem este espaço, antes de mais, como o arquivo do meu projecto pessoal, onde podem encontrar as minhas referências visuais e literárias, os textos deambulatórios e indicações sobre os trabalhos paralelos. Enfim o meu trabalho deste semestre. A presente informação não substitui uma apresentação pessoalmente, no entanto, penso que ajuda a explicar o processo de trabalho ao longo de quatro meses em Praga.

Saudações
Pt

Cartaz

Contact Points

Este projecto consistiu num programa anual de actividades, performances e intervenções no maior mercado de Praga, Hološevice Tžrenice, do qual participei durante cinco meses.
O resultado desta participação, foram uma série de fotografias sobre o mercado e uma intervenção no espaço, registada em vídeo.

2a Exposição/Intervenção Contact Points

Beyond Digital Picture / Kino Svetozor

Flyer

Frames de 'Please do...' versão vídeo

Genérico+Separadores da Mostra

Experiência Erasmus

A última meia hora foi andar ás voltas em círculos à procura de um lugar para estacionar.
Estranho!
De lá de cima a vista era boa e fácil!
Mais uma voltinha.
O sol enganava bem com aquele brilho!
Havia flocos brancos por todo o lado.
Apetecia saltar, mas tinha o cinto e as meninas não me deixaram tirá-lo!
Please don’t...
[…]
Seis horas da tarde quando desembarquei no aeroporto de Praga.
Pronto!
Era já noite, com a temperatura a rondar -5º, e eu ainda não fazia a mais pálida ideia onde ia dormir nessa noite.
Como não tinha o mínimo conhecimento da cidade, só me restou o meu espírito de lusitano conquistador.
Fui pelo único caminho possível.
Em frente!
Porta principal...?
[…]
Há!
A mala!
Deve estar por aqui.
Deveria estar por aqui!
A minha mala?
[…]
A minha preciosa mala perdida num aeroporto algures na Europa. Já não bastava ter ficado sem o meu cartão de débito numa daquelas caixinhas que dá dinheiro, noutro aeroporto.
Bem!
É claro que o cenário podia ser muito pior!
No entanto, foi um bom teste para começar, afinal ainda tinha quatro meses para tentar compor a coisa.
E como a esperança é verde e eu sou do F.C.P., lá continuei.
Dobrý den
Promiňte
Na shledanou
Děkuji
[…]
Dobrý veČer
Jedno pivo, prosim!
Dvá piva, prosim!
Nazdařbuh
Nazdar!
[…]
Maldito checo!
Perdão!
Maldito frio!
Mas porque rapei o cabelo!?
[…]
Com as semanas a passar as frases da praxe decoradas nas aulas de checo.
Jak se maš?
Mám se dobře, a ty?
Nerozumím vám.
Ou ainda... fora das aulas de checo.
Strc prst skrz krk.
Curva!
[…]
Já na digníssima Akademie Výtvarných Uměni V Praze, e ainda sem o estúdio por conquistar, chego à primeira reunião de trabalho e… hello!?
Alguém me apresente por favor!
Ok! I’m Pedro, from Portugal!
Portugalsko!
Dobrý!
Ano!
[…]
E assim continuou até ao fim da reunião.
E durante esse primeiro mês.
E...
A cada dobrý den, a resposta era um par de olhos de admiração.
O que é que ele quer agora?!
[…]
Viva o Museu do Comunismo!
E longa vida aos transportes públicos de Praga.
[…]
2º mês:
Ahoj!
Ahoj! Čau?!
Uns acabam de chegar.
Outros estão a despedir-se...
Restam os e-mails e as fotos na parede.
Promessas.
E o silêncio!
[…]
Dobrý Kutná Hora
Dobrý den Penikov
Dobrý, dobrý Český Rahj
[…]
Obrigado aos turistas. Em especial aos japoneses.
[…]
3º mês:
Čau?!
Čau Pedro! Jak se maš?
Hummm!
Muito melhor!
Já sabem que existo.
Se calhar já sabiam, não queriam é dar bandeira!
Acho que sim!
Mas...
Uns acabam de chegar.
Outros estão a despedir-se...
Sim. É um óptimo exercício para aprender a construir uma vida em quatro meses e a destruí-la no mês seguinte.
Tipo legos!
[…]
Mesmo assim.
Obrigado à companhia do Ryan pelos voos a cinco contos de volta para a terra.
Obrigado Kino Aero pelos filmes comentados.
[…]
Dobrý veČer Český Krumlov
Ostrava
Kraków... pozor!
[…]
Obrigado Kino Světozor!
O meu primeiro vídeo no cinema.
[…]
Brno
Budapesti
Carlovy Vary, 40 anos de festival.
Foi só uma noite...
Desculpa Berlin e Plzeň!
Fica para outra altura.
[…]
[Este espaço é reservado para a aquilo que não foi feito ou deixado por acabar
[...................................................................................]
Na shledanou Mr. Srba!
Papa Veronika…
!p

Flyer

Considerações Gerais

Narrativas Visuais

Este projecto iniciou-se oficialmente no primeiro fórum do 5ºano de design na FBAUP, no Porto. No entanto, não era nada mais do que um simples conjunto de intenções sob a égide da manipulação da imagem.
É só a partir do início da minha mobilidade Erasmus em Praga, que este trabalho começa a ganhar forma e intenção. Inicialmente pelo mero acaso, depois, por pura curiosidade mediática e finalmente, pela necessidade inequívoca de compreender e estruturar todos os registos até então obtidos.
Neste projecto o elemento estruturante é a imagem. Por outras palavras, é o registo fotográfico e videográfico feito ao longo destes cinco meses em Praga. Assim sendo. Pelas suas características, penso que posso classifica-lo como um trabalho documental livre, ou de uma forma mais precisa, trabalho documental orientado. A designação é um tanto ou quanto extensa, mas penso que está em condições de melhor definir a estrutura processual deste trabalho. Digo registo documental orientado na medida em que, o processo de selecção das imagens — onde se inserem os motivos, os espaços, as temáticas e os enquadramentos —, foi sempre feito segundo uma praxis manipulação/subversão. Podem no entanto argumentar que, o trabalho documental é sempre uma praxis manipulação/subversão, pela natureza do olho humano que a constrói, que só por si é tendencioso, contudo, existe neste exercício um conjunto claro de intenções desde o seu início por detrás do olho humano. O que ajuda a justificar a sua designação. E por outro lado, não existe intenção alguma de procurar uma técnica neutral de registar este tema.
Assim sendo, os processos manipulativos começam onde a câmara do turista acaba. Melhor dizendo, a manipulação começa onde o poder de mediação do turista acaba, na minha câmara.
Falo de turistas, porque são eles o objecto de estudo do meu trabalho. Mais precisamente, os processos obsessivos de mediação utilizados por estes. Correm de um lado para o outro com as suas câmaras, tentando apanhar o presente, que está sempre no futuro. E quando vão ver já é passado. Assim, urge registar o processo em si, num movimento de imitação compulsiva ou numa espécie de obsessão mediática, onde o exercício destas falsas práticas ganha uma nova dimensão em frente a objectiva da máquina.
É a matéria do registo narrativo.

Praga, 1 de Julho de 2005 [ Pedro Teixeira

Prefácio

Longe vão os dias em que as matrioskas empoleiradas nas belas montras da rua Karlova me impressionavam. Ena tantas! Era eu então um turista sério!
O propósito de utilizar os turistas como objecto de estudo para o meu trabalho, apenas surge, umas semanas mais tarde, era eu já um estudante e habituado ao mau café da casa.
Desde então, as fotos que ia tirando, ditaram naturalmente o desenvolvimento do meu projecto.
Deste modo, quem tira uma foto, tira duas ou três, ou até mesmo cem, e aí, está obviamente a abusar, então deve compreender o necessário aviso: “Please do not touch these. They are not like postcards. Thank you.” Sim, porque que quando se mediatiza desta forma, está-se a mexer com as entranhas dos boémios que pestanejam a cada flash vindo da montra. Depois é só fazer as contas: dez milhões de ilustres visitais ao ano, multiplicadas por cem disparos de cada exemplar tecnológico. São mais do que as matrioskas! Contas por alto, claro!
Cada um com a sua caixinha multimédia, mas em bandos, com alguém à cabeça que, sabe qual o melhor carreiro a seguir, vão tentando emoldurar tudo o que encontram pelo caminho.
Que engraçado…
Ano, ano!
É mesmo cristal!
Imagem puxa imagem e de repente estava de costas voltado para o relógio astronómico, presente na praça da cidade velha… belo foi o meu espanto, ao descobrir no visor da minha câmara digital, um número considerável de orgulhosos turistas empenhando as suas caixinhas armadas, bem lá no alto prontas a disparar.
Muito bem! Palminhas! Os santinhos já rodaram, já sabemos as horas. Aonde vamos agora?
Bizarra obsessão mediática?
Não sei! Só sei que estive lá, queres ver as fotos!

Porto, 13 de Junho de 2005 [ Pedro Teixeira

Dissertação

Please Do Not Touch These. They Are Not Like Postcards. Thank You.

Desde o papel das cartas e da imprensa até à recente explosão das novas tecnologias multimédia, muitos são os pretextos históricos para se encontrarem relações profundas entre as diversas instâncias sociais e o agir dos meios de comunicação. O uso destes transforma de forma fundamental a organização da vida social, criando novas formas de acção, de interacção e de exercício do poder. Ao utilizarem os meios de comunicação, os seres humanos constroem redes de significação para si próprios (THOMSON, 1995: 11). Mesmo a pretexto deste tema surgiu em Praga a exposição Power of Images, Images of Power onde esteve exemplarmente patente o poder de contaminação dos meios de comunicação nas estruturas sociais, concretamente o poder de persuasão do cartaz no regime comunista da USSR e da Checoslováquia. Destas redes de significação de conteúdos simbólicos e formais partiu inicialmente a exploração do meu projecto. Os meios de comunicação nos seus multimeios trouxeram a realidade da escuridão, colocando-a agora numa montra sobre exposta, onde todos os passos são vigiados e registados. A construção social da realidade assenta num modelo narrativo predeterminado de mediatização da própria realidade, que assim reduz a infinidade de interpretações e significações a um pequeno conjunto que as representa. Neste sentido, os meios de comunicação, possuem uma importância decisiva na transformação das nossas relevâncias. Ou seja, têm uma importância decisiva na selecção dos temas sobre os quais é importante ter opinião ou estar informado. Fixam, não tanto a forma como pensamos mas os temas sobre os quais devemos pensar. As pessoas tendem a orientar as suas opiniões por aquelas que elas crêem serem dominantes. O Homem enquanto ser social é deste modo, facilmente influenciável dentro do seu grupo comunitário ou de interesse. E se falar-mos de comportamentos grupais ritualizados, vamos lá encontrar os turistas que, como qualquer comunidade que se preze tem o seu líder, o guia. Este, pelo seu poder de mediação tem a capacidade de mostrar a verdadeira realidade à comunidade de ocasião. Este modelo mediático de narração da própria realidade, afirma-se nas chamadas indústrias culturais (Theodor W. Adorno; 1947) intrinsecamente ligadas aos processos mediáticos. Ambos concordam no que respeita aos estereótipos dos comportamentos sociais. Adorno chama de indústria cultural a produção dirigida para o consumo das massas segundo um plano preestabelecido, seja qual for a área para a qual essa produção esteja orientada. Deve-se ter em mente que há uma estreita inter relação entre a produção e o consumo, a primeira determina o que deve ser consumido e vice-versa. Neste sentido, ambos os usam como matéria de trabalho. Para a indústria cultural, tanto faz que esse produto seja um espectáculo de ópera difundido pelos meios de comunicação, um concerto ao vivo, como outro produto qualquer. De um modo geral, o denominador comum da indústria cultural, como de qualquer processo industrial, é, a produção para o consumo das massas. E neste espaço surge naturalmente a pergunta: até que ponto um produto da indústria cultural é resultado, de facto, de uma livre e intencional opção por parte do público consumidor, uma vez que os padrões são forçosamente preestabelecidos pelos meios de comunicação e agentes culturais? Muitos antes de tentar responder a esta questão ou a outras a elas associadas, surge a urgência de registar o processo em si, num movimento de imitação compulsiva ou numa espécie de obsessão mediática, a referência são os comportamentos dos exemplares turistas. Em bandos, assimilam o que lhes é impingido nos pacotes turísticos, e só estão autorizados a retractar o ‘belo’ e ás horas certas, tal como está escrito no guia. Este comportamento sistemático acresce de interesse, porque é em si uma subversão do próprio comportamento de curiosidade e descoberta esperado do turista. Falamos desta forma de manipulação, e também de redefinição da imagem, tanto no seu aspecto formal, bem como, o seu conteúdo simbólico, quanto mais não seja pelo reenquadramento contextual a que é submetida. As fotos de sorrisos forçados completam-se com o castelo ao fundo desfocado. Onde é que eu já vi isto!? Hahn! "More eggs – higher quality of life" 1950, cartaz de propaganda comunista. Tal e qual! O sorriso é o mesmo. Desta constatação á imitação compulsiva foi menos de um passo. Imitar, repetir e decalcar por obsessão, de forma a justificar o exercício destas falsas práticas. Exercício de mímica, que projecta os tiques novamente no outro. Um espelho de corpo inteiro que reflecte o comportamento. Se quiserem, é uma rotação de ajuste por conveniência, onde o objecto de estudo é o que mediatiza e não o que é normalmente mediatizado. Por outro lado, este comportamento de mediação reveste-se de um sentimento de pertença do novo espaço, por quem o mediatiza. A imagem obtida, autoriza o autor (turista), a adquirir o espaço como sendo seu. Aquela é uma espécie de autenticação dessa mesma pertença, adquire aqui um valor semelhante ao da realidade experimentada. De certa forma, simula a eternização daquele estado. No entanto, não viabiliza o congelamento desse presente, uma vez que diante de uma câmara a realidade é sempre futuro, que depois de registada é sempre passado.
“O real é aqui e agora!” Roberto F. Ghisu
É a matéria do registo narrativo.

Porto, 13 de Junho de 2005 Pedro Teixeira ____________________________________________________________
BIBLIOGRAFIA:
ADORNO, T. e HORKHEIMER, M. 1985; Dialéctica do Esclarecimento: Fragmentos Filosóficos; Rio de Janeiro, Jorge Zahar.
BENJAMIN, Walter, 1983; A obra de arte na época de sua reprodutibilidade técnica; 2ª ed. São Paulo, Abril Cultural.
BERGER, Peter e LUCKMANN, Thomas, 1973; A Construção Social da Realidade; Petropólis, Editora Vozes.
BOURDIEU, Pierre e PASSERON, Jean Claude, s/d; A ReproduçãoL; Lisboa, Vega.
BRATHES, Rolan; A retórica da imagem (in, O óbvio e o obtuso; Edições 70).
COHN, Gabriel (org.), 1978; Comunicação e Indústria Cultural; 4ª ed. São Paulo, Companhia Editora Nacional.
FERRY, Jean-Marc, 1995; Quelle Téorie critique des médias aujord'hui in Lisbois, Boris et Haarscher, Les Médias entre Droit et pouvoir; Bruxelles, Ed. Université de Bruxelles.
FOUCAULT, M. As Palavras e as Coisas. São Paulo: Martins Fontes, 1995.
HABERMAS, Jurgen, 1984; Mudança Estrutural da Esfera Pública; Rio de Janeiro, Edições Tempo Brasileiro.
McQUAIL, Denis, 1985; Introdúccion a la teoria de comunicación de massas; Barcelona, Paidós Comunicacíon.
MENDES, José Maria Ribeiro, 1985; Mudança Vigiada no Discurso da Imprensa in Revista de Comunicação e Linguagens, Máquinas Censurantes Modernas; Lisboa, Edições Afrontamento, nº 1.
POE, Edgar Alan; O retrato oval (in, Histórias completas de completas de Edgar A. Poe); Ed. Arcádia.
THOMPSON, John B., 1995; Ideologia e Cultura Moderna; Petrópolis, Ed. Vozes.
____________________________________________________________
ARTIGOS:
BIRGUS, Vladimir, 2004; Fotobienalle Moscow 2004 in, Fotograf nº4, vol.3, Prague.
JEPERSSON, Travis, 2005; Kristof Kintera in, Revista Think Again: Prague’s (almost bilingual city magazine) p.26; Praga, Março 2005 nº 16.
JEPERSSON, Travis, 2005; Veronika Bromova’s Nature Morte in, Think Again: Prague’s (almost bilingual city magazine) p.08; Prague, Março 2005 nº 16. ____________________________________________________________
WEBSITES:
http://www.thinkagain.cz/
http://www.veronikabromova.cz/
http://www.fotografnet.cz/
http://www.jirisvestka.com/
http://www.php-gallery.cz/
http://www.kinosvetozor.cz/
http://www.cbrubin.net/
http://www.langhansgalerie.cz/
http://www.czechmania.com/
http://www.muzeumkomunismu.cz/
http://www.ngprague.cz/

Explicação técnica

Este trabalho divide-se em duas partes: a principal, que corresponde a uma série de 17 fotografias que surgiram de uma selecção de entre muitas, com o objectivo de serem expostas como trabalho final na Galeria 555, no Porto; e a segunda parte, não menos importante, corresponde a um vídeo de 3.30 min., já exibido em Praga no âmbito do projecto Contact Points, no Cinema Světosor. Ambos se inserem no mesmo tipo de registo — o documental­—, pela natureza do trabalho que foi efectuado. Pela variação lumínica e cromática natural de vários meses de registos, houve a necessidade de uniformizar as fotografias, por esta razão são a preto e branco. Por outro lado, havia que eliminar elementos cromáticos que perturbavam a imagem no seu essencial. O vídeo encontra-se também a preto e branco, pelos mesmos motivos.
____________________________________________________________
Fotografias 17 p/b: 30x20, 25x20
____________________________________________________________
Vídeo 3.30min. p/b: DV Pal 720x576

Artigos

Este ficheiro contém uma série de artigos que influenciaram o meu trabalho de manipulação da imagem. Em exposições, falando pessoalmente com os autores ou lendo artigos, as influências foram diversas e a vários níveis.
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Krištof Kintera

The lastest exihibition of KriKrištof Kintera, who has been a finalist for the Jindřich Chalupecký Award several times, and has emerged has a one of the Czech Republic’s most talked-about contemporary artists, gadgetry to a new level of weird obsession. Featuring works completed last year during his residency at Amsterdam’s Rijksakademie van Beeldence Kunsten, Super Natural Special Real comprises a series of electric appliances come to life in a post postmodern Toy Story, splendidly installed to ironically incorporate empty space at Jiri Švestka Gallery. From the firt work, a dance of sparks using a wall as conductor, those uninitiated to Kintera’s work may find this show shocking-no pun intented. In kintera’s twisted imagination, a watermelon plays the victim of another appliance’s phallic advences, a drill screws a vacuum cleaner into submission, while a dead camper lies in the corner while the back of his head elicits steam. There’s an underlying implication of violence beneath the whole affair, but visitors to the exhibition seem to be largely overtaken by laughter and bemusement. And, judging by the wild coments the artist has whriten on his sketches (on diplay in the gallery bookshop) one can safely presume that’s all in the name of good fan.
JEPERSSON, Travis, 2005; Kristof Kintera in, Revista Think Again: Prague’s (almost bilingual city magazine) p.26; Praga, Março 2005 nº 16.Krištof Kintera

Veronika Bromova’s Nature Morte

Those who were lucky to catch Veronika Bromova’s exhibition of photographs last year at Futura were probably shocked at what they encountered —even those who have been following the 38-year-old artist’s work throughout the last thirteen years. It’s not that the content was as explicitly confrontatioal in its very quietness, as Bromová show as a more intimate, naturalistc side of herself, thus reaffirming her status as one of the Czech Republic’s more darting auteurs— a status she earned in the 1990s has upheld in the new milennium —through a pointed fearlessness that has few precedents in the local art scene. My Files is a series of selfportraits of Bromová at home, her “natural” setting— her apartement in Prague. It is a brutally honest reading of herself and her surroundings in the midst of a prolonged standstill, a narrative of images psychologically examining the intimate mess of the artist’s live at home. As Bromová’s early work, there is a omnipresent strain of violence lingering somewhere just below the surface —a violence that become more readily pronounced when the artist turns her gaze towards the sink, which is suddenly covered whith amount of blood that is just enough to evoke a disturbed sensation in a viewer, hinting at any number of ghastly narratives that we are unable to fully access, leaving us to dwell in a space as devoid as answers as Bromová’s is cluttered whith objects. It is a poingnantly existencial series tha is often more concerned with the life of the objects themselves than the human life attached to them (although this inference is inevitably present), Bromová’s manis gaze turned towards the “natural” assemblages she finds in her own living space— found art comprised of captures of randow accumolations of live style necessities (a video cassette, a ligther, a marijuana pipe, dirty dishes) in this private bordel that, within the frame, positions itself outside of time.
The idea of nature morte recurs again and again in conversation with Bromová these days, and it is the key concept that ties My Files to bromová’s most recent work-in-progress. Tentatively titled Kingdom, the setting has moved from Bromoá’s apartment to the out side world —fields, hills, but mainly that sacred place were all things in Bohemia find their source, the forest. Bromová transforms herself into a forest nymph, prancing around naked in a market dream state, lost in some intensely private pagan ritual; the smoggy troubles of city life long forgotten. “I’m playing games freely,” she says. “Like a litle girl pretending to be a princess.”
While Bromová’s work is resolutely ensconced in the feminine, it isn’t necessarily reflective of current trends in feminist theory; the artist has little patience with paradigms, insisting that Kingdom in an ongoing work rooted in more natural feeling of identification with a lineage of women that begins with fairy queens and earth goddesses. When asked whether her work is strictly autobiographical or if she imagines herself portraying charecters, she answers both— “I can find parts of myself in all of these characters,” she asserts. In the Bromovian universe, there is a clearly sense of self, even though a sence of displacement is often readily apparent, as in her early photographs, in which the artist’s body is twisted and mutated via digital manipulation. Along with Loboš Pilný, she is one of the few artists in Czech Republic using her own body as a symbolic site.
As in her early work, Kingdom is enlivened with a rich performative spontaneity that is caracteristicaly Bromovian. In many respects Bromová is a militantly anti-conceptual artist, creating in every piece her own simbolic universe endowed with a linguage of its own, comprised of scenes containing a series of gestures and contortions in order to express the randomness of a given, “contrived” situation. She speaks of the difficulty of stepping outside of one’s own shadow, and in this respect, Kingdom resonates with Bromová’s lifelong project —namely, to attain the impossible through the art of acting out of her own impulses. It’s a deceptively simple equation, but one that is executed with the clear precision. The images emerging in Kingdom confound the viewer while simultaneously us to enter into this natural, “pure” universe of joy. Living in troubled times, we have no choice but to rely on artists like Veronika Bromová to remind us of the significance of empathy— in relation of each other, as well as our surroundings.
www.veronikabromova.cz
JEPERSSON, Travis, 2005; Veronika Bromova’s Nature Morte in, Revista Think Again: Prague’s (almost bilingual city magazine) p.08; Praga, Março 2005 nº 16.

Layered Histories

The wandering >Bible of Marseilles<
Cynthia-Beth Rubin & Robert J. Gluck

“Layered Histories” is the imaginary story of 13th century illuminated Hebrew manuscript, today known as the “Marseilles Bible.” It is an interactive work that mirrors the many layers of the manuscript as a beautiful work of art reflecting the convergence of cultures in medieval Spain, and as a narrative text of layered meanings. The history of this manuscript is only partially known, leaving undocumented imagined wanderings to diverse places and peoples. Created in Toledo, Spain in c. 1260, the Bible visually embodies the multiple influences of Jewish convergence with Christian and Islamic cultures. After the 1492 Expolsion of Jews from Spain by Ferdinand of Arragon and Isabella of Castilla, it was brought out of Spain by the Jewish refugees. It traveled to the Ottoman town of Safed in Northern Galilee, where it was amongst religious mystics seeking the means to repair the ills of the world (Tikkun ha-Olam). It subsequently disappeared until around 1884, when, mysteriously, tree volumes of the Bible were discovered iun the collection of the Bibliotèque municipale of Marseilles, where they reside today (BM Marseilles, MS 1626, I-III). Reflecting on the expirience of culture as a phenomenom that evolves from influences of place and cross-cultural contact, the non-linear narrative of Layered Histories is draw from the possible wanderings of the Marseilles Bible, as it is known today. The work brings together moving images and sound, shifting and changing in response to gestures by a viewer across a digitalized surface. Evolved from real world photographs and sound samples, the sources are manipulated to reflect the aesthetic expirience of place, movement, and change, rather than direct documentation. The images are morphed together to create fluid moving clips, and the sounds cross-fade from one to the next. As a collaborative work, Layered Histories reflects the differing layers of vision of its authors. Music and image are melded together in viewer’s experience, but each follows a separate course of interactivity, coming together in the moment. Both music and image were developed within the vision of reflecting the experience of a timeless object which has seen history, much of the world, and has many stories to tell.
http://www.cbrubin.net/
http://www.emfinstitute.emf.org/
http://www.electricsongs.com/
The exhibition is part of the cycle Jewish Presence in Contemporary Visual Arts – Places of Memory.
Jewish Museum in Prague – Robert Guttmann Gallery, U staré školy 3, 110 00 Praha 1
February 24 – March 27, 2005-07-06

Fotobienalle Moscow 2004

Although the Moscow Photobienalle has taken place this spring only for the fifth time, and therefore has not by any stretch attained the kind of long tradition like the Rencontres d’Arles, the Month of Photography in Paris, the spring festival in Barcelona, or Photofest in Houston, it is already evident that it has become one of the most significant photography festivals worldwide, one that in many ways – such as in the number of extraordinary exhibitions and the enormous public and media interest, as well as the illustrious openings and social events – outdoes some of its more established rivals. At the same time, this year the festival lost its main venue, as the spacious exhibition hall Bolshoi Manezh in the immediate vicinity of the Kremlin burned down to its bare walls just weeks before the show was due to open. The organizers of the Photobienalle, headed by the Director of thr Moscow House of Photography (Dom Fotografii) Olga Sviblova, however, managed, at considerable expensive, to secure alternative venues for the several dozen exhibitions originally planned to feature to the Manezh, as a result of wich in the end the festival program boasted a formidable number of one hundred and thirty exhibitions divided into three thematic sections; City, Identification, and New Tecchnologies (though some exhibitions were only very loosely related to the afore-mentioned themes). Apart from this, a number of so-called master classes held by prominent international photographers and curators also took place, as well as workshops and film screenings.
Most abundantly represented, naturally, was local Russian photography. Among the most revealing shows were Photomonatge in the USSR 1920-1950, wich aside from the notorius constructivist works of El Lissitzky, Alexander Rodchenko, Varvana Stepanova and Gustav Klutzis featured also a whole range of now little-known avant-garde collages for film posters, book and magazine covers as well as a number of agit-prop photomontages rendered in the spirit of Socialist Realism. Historical Russian Photography was also represented by hand-colored images dating from the period 1890-1910, shots from the First World War, and somewhat descriptive photographs of the architecture of Leningrad by Sergei Shimansky, and some rather more lively images of Moscow from the 1930s through the 1970s by Naum Granovky. A vast majority of the shows, however, presented contemporary work, manifesting that Russia today as a number of promising artists in various fields, such as in the genres of staged photography and the photographic documentary, as well as in portrait and fashion photography. The AES + F group presented impressive, giant blowups of digitally manipulated images of children sporting the most state of the art weapons, in sand –swept wastelands or in the streets of large urban areas. These thechnically spotless photographs, with their expensive production, employing scores of models and shooting in locations such as the Negev desert or the dowtown areas of New York city and Cairo, remind one of the film production or especially upscale fashion shoots; they are extremely spectacular, but at the same time their content is powerful, respponding to many burning issues regarding child abuse. Unquestionably the most controversial work on exhibit was another set of gigant color prints by Arsen Savadov. Entitled Book of the Dead, in wich he presents apocalyptic images of corpses grouped in various still life combinations. Savadov here continues the work of Joel-Peter Witkin, but carries the fusion of and beauty still further. The fragments of dancers’bodies against black backgrounds, inspired by ancient statues and their missing parts by the formerly provocative Oleg Kulik were made to look as merely futile decorative quirks by comparision.
Russian photographers presented a number of decent works, especially in the field of the portrait, that had until recently fallen slightly outside of the principal creative trends. Andrei Chezhin of St. Petersburg showed his 366 imaginative self-portraits, taken day by day over the course of one year. Among the revelations were thr portraits of Vladimir Mishukov from the cycles Neon Dreams and The Cult of the Family, making superb use of sociologically evocative environments. Documentary work, richly represented here, showed consirerable constrast in terms of quality. On the on hand, one appreciated that the era of the predominance of naturalist shots of various prisons or homeless shelters, in wich Russian photography as it were compensated for the long years of compulsory optimism and Socialist Realism, seems to be over. On the other hand, a number of collections of various remote reaches of Russia were notable for their tedious descriptiveness and superficial enchantment with the exotica of the motifs. Still, there were numerous exceptions. Many artists manifested a very thoughtful and striking sense of color, such as Boris Savelyev, in his contemplative photographs discovering chimeric motifs in everyday urban life, Igor Mukhin in his cycle Southern Cities of Russia, Valeriy Stigneyev in his inventive photographs of American cities, or Sergei Burasovskij’s photographs from Bashkiria.
As usual, at the center of the crowds’ attention were the foreign shows, wich included also several historical exhibitions. A particulat treat for experts was the retrospective of original prints of social photography from 1936-1951 by members of the New York Film and Photo League, who due to their left-wing leanings ceased to be either written or talked about the Could War. It is only in the last two decades that the works of Aaron Siskind, Helen A. Levitt, Walter Rosenblum, Ruth Orkin, Jerome Liebling and other members of the group, focusing chiefly on the life of various minorities at the peripheries of New York, have been abundantly published and appreciated. Photograph of the interwar period was represented also by the wellknown Berenice Abbot cycle New York, 1935-1939, and the advertising photographs of the Swedish artist Emil Heilborn, who exploited the principles of the Neue Sachlichkeit and Constructivism. An exhibition of postcards shots of Roman sights from the mid-nineteenth century until the present day was of litle interest.
In the foreign part of the festival, contemporary work also predominated. Martin Parr’s new work, Europe, oh la la ironically portrays various typical manifestations of globalization and consumerism in sharply colored details of people and objects. A subtle irony also distinguished the outstanding photographs of offices, homes and wekeend cottages by the Swedish artist Lars Tunbjörk. The American pioneer of the subjective documentary William Klein presented an extensive selection of expressive shots of Paris, the city he has lived in for more than half a century, but to wich – unlike New York City, Rome, Moscow or Tokyo – he had not yet dedicated and independent book or exhibition. The double bill of Mary Ellen Mark featured, apart from its documentary side, American Odyssey, also her fascinating portraits of twins rendered in technically flawless platinum prints. Among other outstanding exhibitions were John Demo’s black and white images of the rural life, religious festivities and traditional customs of Greece in his cicle entitled Shadows of Silence, Luigi Ghirri’s collection of subtle color details of Italian landscapes and cities, and Lauren Greenfield’s color cycle on contemporary American girlhood. Worthy of mention was also the retrospective of the icon of Lithuanian photography, Antanas Sutkus, who as far back as the 1950s and 60s created subtle, melancholic portraits of ordinary people, showing everyday rural life as well as life in Vilnius with a veracity unusual in Soviet photography of those times. The several exhitions of the Iranian photography were of rather varying quality – as is similar with the cinema of Iran, its photography is at the moment much in vouge in Western Europe. The collection of recent works by the famous American photographer Ralph Gibson provided a unanimous disappoitment – the espectrual quality disappeared almost altogether, leaving only superficial formal effects. Totally below the mark of a festival of this importance were the amateurish portraits of Spain writers and poets by Mario Muchnik.
Although aside from Russian work the the Photobiennale has traditionally presented chiefly photography from USA, Western Europe and Asia, this year also extensively featured Czech photography, and for the most part directly next to the exhibition of Pablo Picasso in the Museum of Contemporary History. The exhibition The City Contemporary Czech Documentary Photography, presented various aspects of city life in the works of such already established artists as Antonín Kratochvíl, Jindřich Štreit, Viktor Kolář, Jiří Hanke, Dana Kyndrová, Jaroslav Bárta, Václav Podestát and Evžen Sobek, as well as the work of talented members of the younger generation (Tomáš Pospěch, Jiří Křenek, Markéta Kinterová, Tomáš Třeštík, Jan Dyntera, Jan Bartoš). The program also featured the Self-Portrait of Dita Pepe, the much exhibited and published cycle of subtly nostalgic images of the village of Rokytník by Jitka Hanzlová, a Czech photographer living in Essen, and Inexpressible, by the author of this article.
www.fotografnet.cz
BIRGUS, Vladimír; Photobiennale Moscow 2004; in, Fotograf nº4, vol.3 pp.118-119; Medica Publishing and Consulting S.R.O., Brno 2004.

Czechmania

An eclectic selection of people from Prague sending humorous and creative visual messages about their personal perceptions of Czech identity as photographed by Štěpánka Stein and Salim Issa are on diplay at the Prague house of Photography. Stein and Issa are collaborative photographers who have chosen to focus on the lifestyle, fashion, and work of the contemporary Czech designers and architects.
These photos are part of the Czechmania project: a programme of contemporary Czech design, travel, and lifestyle that draws on the cutting edge of Czech creative talent. The message is the thing, and the thing is to see it!
www.czechmania.com
www.php.gallery.cz
March 2nd April 10th
Prague House of Photography, Václavské nám. 31, P1

Power of Images, Images of Power

Communist Propaganda Posters exhibition at Galerie U Křížovníků, Praha 1.
Until March 30th, 2005

Maybe communism wasn't such a bad idea after all.Heading down tourist-clogged Karlova street, lined with overpriced restaurants and shops selling generic eurotat, I'm not seeing capitalism at its best.I'm on my way to Moc obrazu, obrazy moci ("Power of Images, Images of Power"), an exhibition of Czechoslovak and Soviet propaganda posters, in a newish gallery at the Old Town end of Charles Bridge.Avoiding a group of black guys dressed in sailor suits, eagerly handing out flyers for some boat trip or other, I head inside and pay my 100 crowns.The exhibition is divided into five sections, and all explanatory texts, including some relevant quotes from writers and intellectuals, are in Czech and English.On the downside, someone's set up a stereo system in the entrance area, and the sound of jaunty Latino-style muzak follows me round the exhibition, even drifting into the dark depths of 1950s Stalinist repression.The exhibition begins with a selection of idealistic works, titled "Brave New World," from a period when the communists believed that heaven on Earth was within their grasp.Along one wall, there's a selection of 1930s Soviet posters.My favourite of these, from 1931, features an imperious looking Lenin against a sky full of blimps. The title is translated, as "We will build Lenin's escadron of airships."I make a mental note to slip the word "escadron" into conversation more frequently.There's also a poster by El Lissitzsky here, promoting a Soviet exhibition at Zurich's Museum of Applied Arts.The Czechoslovak posters on the opposite wall, mainly from the 1940s, are generally bolder, more colourful and more stylish than their Soviet equivalents.Like all design, the simplest ideas are usually the strongest.A simple red-and-white 1948 Czechoslovak election poster, for instance, carries far more power today than Soviet exhortations to producers of "iron, alloy and rolled materials." (These mysterious "rolled materials" seem to have preoccupied the Kremlin, and resurface later in the exhibition.)The second section, With Lenin For Ever, looks at communism as a pseudo-religion, which means lots of posters of Lenin and Stalin plus a few posters showing an utterly anonymous man with no chin.This, I later realize, is Klement Gottwald. It must've been galling for Czechoslovak propagandists that their revolutionary icon was one of the most ordinary looking men ever to walk the planet.There's also an "inspirational" quote from Pravda:"Should you ever run into difficulties at work, or suddenly doubt your abilities, think of him - of Stalin - and you'll find the necessary self-confidence. Should you feel tired at a time when a man should not be tired, think of him - of Stalin - and work will become easier. Should you be at a loss as to how you should act, think of him - of Stalin - and your decision will be the right one."I intend to apply this to my own life, but substituting Steve Jobs for Stalin.On another wall, Czech poet Viteslav Nezval offers some equally uplifting thoughts:"The Prague Castle, a breathtaking sight, flies the flag of a workers' president. Gone are the ministers in their top hats, gone annuities and businessmen. Not a single paper in Prague now invents sensational stories of murder; idlers were replaced by Stakhanovites and these will never surrender."Elsewhere in this section, several posters show workers eagerly reading some not-particularly-interesting-looking newspapers - Rude pravo ("Red Truth"), Rovnost ("Equality"), Odborar ("Trade Unionist"), and Rozsevacka ("Seeder") - "the newspaper for working women."The third section - In The Grip Of Power - deals with the spread of totalitarianism into every aspect of life.Idealism takes second place to conformity here, and there are lots of crowd scenes and shows of hands on display.A chilling Soviet poster from 1931 shows a giant red hand pointing out three shifty looking characters, while a crowd of workers glares in their direction. The text reads: "To help the industrial and financial plan, we are organizing a court of comrades."Another Soviet poster, from 1950, depicts a giant worker slamming his fist down on a table surrounded by puny-looking Western leaders. The slogan, unintentionally ironic, is, "We Ask For Peace!"The fourth section - Reconstruction of the Earth - concerns industrialization and five-year plans and their impact on the environment.One of the exhibition's most effective posters is here, marking Czechoslovakia's third five-year plan. Another simple red-and-white design, from 1960, it shows a numeral 5 being hoisted onto two others.Elsewhere, though, the efforts to spur the workers on become increasingly absurd, lumbered with titles like "Pioneers let us fight for Bolshevik plans in black metallurgy, for quality of production, for better working discipline, for alloy steel, rolled materials."A poster from 1975, by heavily featured Soviet artist Viktor Korekij, depicts the construction of the Baikal-Amur railway as an almost Wagnerian act of heroism.Part of the reason communism failed, you begin to realize, is that it was essentially dull, and no amount of propaganda could disguise the fact.Czech poet Ivan Skala works himself into a froth at the thought of "firm breasts of young girls that lean against lathes, and the bosoms of young mothers arched like the rainbow," but ultimately it all comes back to boring old manual labour.The fifth and final section of the exhibition, Masquerade of Evil, is - for Western visitors, at least - the most fun, dealing with the regimes' most blatant and shameless propaganda.Here, patriotism blends into outright bigotry.The most outrageous poster, from 1950s Czechoslovakia, shows a sickly green caricature of an American - vaguely reminiscent of the cartoon germs you see in TV commercials - poisoning an Asian family with a test tube full of flies and smoke."To court with the American barbarians," declares the text. "We will punish the instigators of bacterial war."This depiction of Westerners crops up several more times before the end of the exhibition, sometimes augmented with Nazi insignia or a slightly effeminate appearance.Another approach is to compare life under communism, where there's "no place for unemployment" and capitalism. While a gainfully employed Soviet youth learns engineering, for instance, his New York City equivalent begs for food amongst top-hatted toffs.Mixed in with this increasingly hysterical sloganeering is a series of gloriously mundane Czechoslovak posters celebrating the plenitude communism had supposedly created."More eggs - higher quality of life," claims a particularly marvellous 1950s poster, featuring headscarved women holding baskets of the aforementioned foodstuff.For reasons I can't quite put my finger on, though, my personal favourite is an advert for state insurer Ceska Statni Sporitelna, showing an "average" Czech family of the 1970s.I'm not sure if it's the father's hideous hairstyle - a bizarre combination of mullet and comb-over - or the grotesquely fat baby he and his pretty wife are cradling that particularly amuse me.The exhibition's parting shot is a quote from political scientist Hannah Arendt."Totalitarian solutions may well survive the fall of totalitarian regimes in the form of strong temptations which will come up whenever it seems impossible to alleviate political, social or economic misery in a manner worthy of man."It's a worthy thought but, in context, it seems heavy-handed, not unlike propaganda itself.A more tangible reminder that the Czech Republic hasn't entirely shed its communist legacy is the gift shop, which, like most gallery and museum shops in Prague, is a disappointment.None of the Czechoslovak posters are available as postcards, and only a handful of the Soviet works, and there are no replica posters on sale.The only other related material available is the catalogue and a couple of books of Chinese propaganda posters, which don't feature in the exhibition.Disappointed, I head to the supermarket. sam@stumpymoose.com
www.stumpymoose.com/suburbanbohemia
Sam Beckwith [ Prague, 12 February 2005

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