Date: 03.05.2017 — 28.05.2017
A refreshing treatment. Mud baths. Entertainment first and foremost. Do not miss! All you have to do is come – and it’s all free.
The line that invites to the exhibition of author duo & (Barbora Trnková & Tomáš Javůrek) entices and tempts you to visit the gallery’s stone expanse. Nothing seems odd about this, except that one can use their artistic projects virtually anywhere. The authors deal mainly with online art and development of interactive applications. Their projects include the ScreenSaverGallery gallery, which produces works of art in the form of screensavers.
Connecting to a network, downloading an application, and using it on your own device can work without specific parameters of the showroom. Yet a Wi-Fi installation in the form of exhibition in the etc. gallery gives the opportunity to collectively present several previously created projects and to emphasize the common features and motives repeatedly arising in them.
The gallery does not necessarily have to be a place where materialization of virtual images or aestheticization through installation takes place. The reason to realize an exhibition may be even an avulsion from the random conditions surrounding the normal manipulation with a device (like one’s own smartphone). Or that one may encounter or interfere with other gallery visitors through the way devise is used. What might happen here is a situation where the empty space is filled with gestures contingent on interactive applications. The striking multiplication of these gestures in a few closed square meters also allows users to observe each other, thereby creating a further level of interaction. The fact that the works of art encourage performative use is being enhanced this way. Some of them can be used in two ways – together and against each other.
In general, we can see two ways the works of art function at the exhibition. The first one is linked to the use of phone camera. The act of taking pictures became a matter of routine thanks to the permanent opportunity to take pictures. The apps of & disrupt and test the familiar process of mirroring the user’s subjectivity when using technology. It happens that we take a shot and capture one that is a little different than what we expected. When touching a screen – usually associated with the moment of shooting – is being metaphorically identified with pulling a gun’s trigger (Problem Generator), connotations of the issues of war photography or simply a question of responsibility, overwhelmed by inflation of the value and credibility of the photographic image, come into play.
Another recurring principle in the works draws attention to the relationship between the image and the text. In the case of Obscure Motif or Chat Show, it is a game of user-view expectations in the face of software. The user assumes certain capabilities of the program, but they surprise him and mirror his own ideas. The interaction thus associates the principle of the oracle: At the level of a text message, the viewer encounters general and universal messages that reflect his own experience of using technology or working with his own data. A participant’s trust plays a major role. He or she installs an unfamiliar software on his/her device, yet uploads his or her own photos. Trust also demonstrates a psychological phenomenon described as Forer’s effect. It is a tendency to accept a general description that ostensibly reflects the character’s characteristics.
The human-machine circle closes and allows the outsider to see the habits of sharing information through images or communication platforms. Thus an insecurity with common image working methods and image manipulation tools occurs. Visitor of the (virtual) space is confronted with a choice of how to handle the application. In some ways, some of the applications make a sort of “simulator” or a model situation ready to be filled with new content. This relationship affects our day-to-day decisions in contact with the tools that allow us to communicate with each other through the interface of technology.
Curators: Alžběta Bačíková a Anna Remešová
