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So the virgin and the god: he driven by desire, she by fear. He ran faster, Amor giving him wings, and allowed her no rest, hung on her fleeing shoulders, breathed on the hair flying round her neck.
Ovid, Metamorphoses
The second is the so-called “Achilles”, and it amounts to this: that in a race the quickest runner can never overtake the slowest, since the pursuer must first reach the point whence the pursued started, so that the slower must always hold a lead.
Zeno's paradox in Aristoteles, Physics
Social space is a social product...
the space thus produced also serves as a tool of thought and of action...
in addition to being a means of production it is also a means of control, and hence of domination, of power.
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space
Man does not live by words alone; all 'subjects' are situated in a space in which they must either recognize themselves or lose themselves, a space which they may both enjoy and modify.
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space
An extraordinary indeed unthinkable, impossible confusion gradually arises between space and surface, with the latter determining a spatial abstraction which it endows with a half-imaginary, half-real physical existence.
Henri Lefebvre, The Production of Space
The fortunate thing in dancing is that space and time cannot be disconnected, and everyone can see and understand that. A body still is taking up just as much space and time as a body moving.
Merce Cunningham
Fast rotating white dwarf drags its space-time in a cosmic dance.
Science News
It is a unique opportunity given to us by nature - having to stop the endless speeding up of existence and cultural life, and living for a while in a different time. Try to use this time wisely. Instead of checking new and FB every hour, read the classics, for example.
Lev Manovich, Facebook
Contemporary spectators are spectators on the move; primarily, they are travelers. Contemporary vita contemplativa coincides with permanent active circulation. The act of contemplation itself functions today as a repetitive gesture that can not and does not lead to any result—to any conclusive and well-founded aesthetic judgment, for example.
Boris Groys, Comrades of Time
These material remains were tangible indicators that, synchronic space, or “present” space, subsumes processual diachronic time. Space, simply put, has a temporal, historical dimension.
Amanda Jane Graham
Do we know that, between one orbit and the next, other orbits are geometrically possible? Einstein has led us to think that the neighbourhood of matter makes space non-Euclidean; might it not also make it discontinuous?
Bertrand Russell, The Analysis of Matter
Imprisoned by four walls
(to the North, the crystal of non-knowledge a landscape to be invented
to the South, reflective memory
to the East, the mirror to the West, stone and the song of silence)
I wrote messages, but received no reply.
Octavio Paz
Press W + ↑ to run
ABOUT
Body Movement as a Space-Time (Dis)continuity
Artists
Olga Mikh Fedorova
Dominik Gajarský
Olga Krykun
Barbora Látalová
Zden Brungot Svíteková
Curated by
Viktor Čech
Architect
Matěj Kos
Graphic design
Jan Slabihoudek
CGI & 3D
Marek Bulíř, Jáchym Moravec
Release of the online exhibition: 18th of December 2020
The third and last part of the project focusing on the relationship of contemporary art, choreography and contemporary dance is dedicated to the question of bodily motion as a space-time (dis)continuum, perceiving time and the motions of the human body in the art of contemporary video, performance and dance. The exhibition wholly takes place in an online 3D environment which connects the two artistic spheres by means of video, installation and the viewer’s interaction.
In his famous paradox about Achilles and the Turtle, the pre-Socratic philosopher Zeno of Elea discussed the irreconcilable opposites of motion and its impossibility, as well as duration and the present moment. His dialectical exercises force us to reflect that the fleet-footed Achilles can never reach the slowly crawling turtle, and that in fact motion as such is impossible – as difficult to accept as these solutions might be to “common sense.” But the continuum of movement or its individual phases are the two main ways of perceiving the movement of human bodies in their surrounding space, whether it is the rhythmically hopping dancer, or Indiana Jones running from a large round boulder.
The structured series of bodily positions which differ from the well-known form from photographic series of Muybridge or Marey, as if confirming this apparent impossibility of movement. But some endlessly long moments that stay in our memories, like the recollection of a fall after tripping, say otherwise. Aesthetics built on the opposition of continuity and discontinuity of human movement is, after all, one of the cornerstones of any dance form. The space in which human bodies move and which they often share is not however an innocent, virgin space which we activate and define through our presence.
In the life of a human society, space is not only a largely political phenomenon, but any culture rather shapes the spaces for human beings and thus defines them as a form of active politics. This is convincingly argued by Henri Lefebvre in his seminal book Production of Space, published almost half a century ago. He draws attention to a phenomenon which is all the more palpable today – that for contemporary, late-capitalist consumer society, the territories of colonization and re-articulation are those which are most intimate, the most private spaces each one of us occupies.
The predefined dreamworld (analogously defined in Alfie Brown’s book The Playstation Dreamworld) into which video gamers gladly plunge in order to experience a separate reality from the real world is only one of many examples when an alternate flow of time and experience of space in both digital and analogue dimensions force us to incessantly switch between various modes of operation. This accelerating lack of focus in our perception and bodily coordination cannot only hide behind the fetish of multitasking which our devices are able to perform, but our brains not so much. It is like an incessantly aggressive hacking of discontinuities by the apparatuses of consumer life which prevent us from merging with our surrounding world. Discontinuity allows parcellation, commodification and exploitation in a thousand cuts of profit and control.
In the past decades, one of the popular methods of “healing” this exhausting and fragmented anabasis of our consumer lifestyles is the apparent return to both phantasmic and real archetypal roots of human civilization, such as the retreat to the timelessness of ritual. This general drive which strives towards deceleration of both the physical and psychological life tempo, just as much as finding retreats in mental spaces of irrational epistemology of occult or conspiratorial visions could make sense for a while, if it weren’t for the fact these method are an always-already appropriated component which fragments the flow of our daily experience amongst a yoga course, work and evening binging on conspiratorial videos , occasionally peppered with advertisement. An alternative could offer more positive ways – for example by escaping the consumer system’s insistence on false exceptionality in favor of community solidarity and dialogue, from bodily austerity to bodily sharing, but also from disparate vectors of movement as well as thoughts of synthesizing synchronous curves.
Olga Mikh Fedorova
The works of Olga Mikh Fedorova (b. 1980 in Moscow, currently based in Brussels) focuses on the topic of the human body in contemporary and future technologies. Such contact usually takes place in descriptively geometric 3D visualized environments which are becoming an inextricable part of our current lives. This is the case not only for the users of computer games with their projected avatars, but this interface is today rather a place to define and formulate large swathes of technology, forms, and objects which can be subsequently applied in our “real” world and by means of which we can sometimes encounter a remote surgeon the form of visual representation. In this non-existent but ever-present space, our needs and desires are projected in symbiosis to the organicity of our bodies and technologies. The themes of desire, erotic or violent projection and a dream-like repetition of bodily movements locked in the autonomous logic of virtual space, Fedorova uniquely revisits the updated legacy of Surrealism. Although in such a place we can be virtually anyone, for example a bearded dwarf with a large axe, in her latest work the artist intervenes mostly with metamorphosis of her own embodiment and visual identity.
Party next door, 2020, 3D videoanimation, 1:00 min
on planet O, 2020, 3D videoanimation, 0:59 min
Dominik Gajarský
The work of Dominik Gajarský (b. 1986 in Havlíčkův Brod, currently based in Prague) focuses on moving image and contemporary art on the one hand and music production on the other (especially under the moniker Slowmotiondancer). In his short video performance from 2010 he shows how these two spheres can mutually intersect. The video is of the same length (3:07 minutes) as the track Lesson One by the Group Figure Study. In this work, Gajarský realized a choreographic situation based on a conceptual solution. The common effect of slow motion, generated by manipulating the speed of the recorded moving image is realized by a slow, analogue, continuous movement of individual actors and the resulting video is merely is a record of that. It is at the same time a variation on the medium of the music video, but in the form of a purely visual, soundless presentation of movement. If music is often considered the archetypal temporal medium which provides the structure for dance movement, here we do not hear it, but it still remains the defining feature of the work.
Figure Study — Lesson One, 2010, video, 3:07 min
Olga Krykun
In her work, Olga Krykun (b. 1994, Odessa, Ukraine, lives and works in Prague) mostly focuses on the field of video, performance, working with the symbolism of contemporary culture and installation. Her aesthetics exhibit a fashionable street or music club style with a kitschy sensibility and a visually and materially raw form of narration. Her “multi-dimensional video” entitled Glyptodon Expert Interview: Prehistoric Mammals Portal merges the archetypal situation of rituals with the decadence of a dance party which moves through contradictory environments by means of “portals”. The retro aesthetics of the playfully raw digital post-production are reminiscent of a vintage music video, but this archaic quality at the same time fills us with a sense for the mysterious mysticism of ancient shamanism. The seeming naiveté of the rendering and the cliché story only enhance this feeling. The cooperative character of the whole work utilizing a music component, its prominent and fashionable stylization and poetics of the narrative frame support a sense that it is a mounting ritual experience which culminates in a final catharsis.
Glyptodon Expert Interview: Prehistoric mammals portal multidimensional video, 2018, video, 8:24 min
Text by Ester Grohová, music by Jan Glín, Surrogate Sigma (ШЩЦ), Ondřej Vicena, sound edit by Hyaen (WRONG), performed by Dominika Slavická, Lukáš Slavický, Jan Soumar, styling by Martina Feitová (Recycle Vintage Store)
Barbora Látalová, Zden Brungot Svíteková
Space-time of bodily memories.
The theme of the project is longevity in its sustainability, whether it is possible, necessary, real or unrealistic.
The dance project of Zdenka Svíteková and Barbora Látalová was inspired by the philosophical thought and psychology of Carl Gustav Jung. It is based on the principle of an experiment of association, which they do not project into words but into the space of bodily empathy. For the performers, the interactions which unfold as part of the shared cognitive space-time become a means to analyze the subtle play of mimicry and cognitive empathy, as well as the ability or inability of a meeting of minds.
All personal communication reflects the aspects of its (dis)continuity in time and space, its presence or the distance between bodies in a shared space. The interspaces of physical and social participation can be experienced as the legacy of Darwin’s biological coding of our bodily language and mimicry, gestures and other performative acts, as much as they can function to explore the boundaries between controlled consciousness and the depths of our unconscious, which is also inseparable from the self-reflection of our existence in a dynamic and spatially distributed temporality.
Building on the principles of mimicry, emotional and cognitive empathy, embodiment and sharing of mind.
Complex Galaxy Speaking Loud ( (((( LP (longterm partnerships)
Video Documentation: 3:28 min, 3:42 min, 3:48 min, 2020
Concept and creation: Zden Brungot Svíteková, Barbora Látalová
Performers: Zden Brungot Svíteková, Barbora Látalová, Romana Packová
Production: OSTRUŽINA z.s.
in collaboration with Crewcollective for the Open Sunday project
Video Documentation: Filip Kopecký
With the support of: MKČR, MHMP
Dominik Gajarský
Figure Study — Lesson One, 2010, video, 3:07 min
Olga Krykun
Glyptodon Expert Interview: Prehistoric mammals portal multidimensional video, 2018, video, 8:24 min
Text by Ester Grohová, music by Jan Glín, Surrogate Sigma (ШЩЦ), Ondřej Vicena, sound edit by Hyaen (WRONG), performed by Dominika Slavická, Lukáš Slavický, Jan Soumar, styling by Martina Feitová (Recycle Vintage Store)
Olga Mikh Fedorova
Party next door, 2020, 3D videoanimation, 1:00 min
Olga Mikh Fedorova
on planet O, 2020, 3D videoanimation, 0:59 min
Barbora Látalová, Zden Brungot Svíteková
Complex Galaxy Speaking Loud ( (((( LP (longterm partnerships)
Video Documentation: 3:28 min, 3:42 min, 3:48 min, 2020
Concept and creation: Zden Brungot Svíteková, Barbora Látalová
Performers: Zden Brungot Svíteková, Barbora Látalová, Romana Packová
Production: OSTRUŽINA z.s.
In collaboration with Crewcollective for the Open Sunday project
Video Documentation: Filip Kopecký
With the support of: MKČR, MHMP