New Media Art & Archive Session I: Collection

The series deals with the complex issue of archiving new media works of art in public institutions. It focuses on the full range of activities necessary for the technical protection of the work, its correct interpretation and presentation.

The series is based on the Olomouc Museum of Art: New Media Museums project prepared in cooperation with the Slovak National Gallery, WRO Art Center, C³ – Kulturális és Kommunikációs Központ and PAF – Film Animation and Contemporary Art Festival. It reflects the current Central European situation, but tries to put it in a more general context.

The aim is to start a lively discussion platform and share knowledge across institutions. Workshops are thus open not only to students and the professional public but also to interested members of the general public.

Coordination: Dušan Barok, Jakub Frank, Barbora Kundračíková in cooperation with Jana Horáková
Technical support: Svatava Doubková and Michael Franěk
Contact: b.kundracikova@mail.muni.cz

SESSION I: Collection, October 8, 2021, 2–4.30 pm
WRO Art Center (PL) - Ursula Blickle Video Archive | Belvedere Museum Vienna (AT) – National Film Archive (CZ) – TATE Gallery/ Goldsmiths, University of London (UK)

SESSION II: Artist, October 15, 2021, 2–4.30 pm
Attila Csörgő (HU) – Jana Bernartová (CZ) – Pawel Janicki (PL) – Michael Bielický (CZ/ DE)

Jana Bernartová

Jana Bernartová (1983) has graduated at the Faculty of Arts and Architecture at the Technical University of Liberec, where she studied in the Studio of Visual Communication – Digital Media (Stanislav Zippe, 2003–2007). During those years she also studied at the atelier of photography and intermedia led by Ľubo Stach at the Academy of Fine Arts in Bratislava (2006–2007) and in the studio of intermedia led by Václav Stratil at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology (2007–2009). She successfully completed the doctoral program in the Supermedia studio of Federico Díaz at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague (2010–2013). She lives and works in Prague and Liberec. In her work, she examines the relationships between the virtuality of digital space and its material intersections into the world in question. She monitors the principles and possibilities of pre-setting and standardization and their possible failures. Through her visually measured intermediate works, she comments on the state of the contemporary world (art).

Attila Csörgő

Attila Csörgő (1965) studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Budapest (painting/intermedia faculty, 1988-1994) and Rijksakademie van beeldende Kunsten in Amsterdam (1993). His works explore the adjoining territories of art and science. He makes experiments with carefully engineered devices of his own design, with cameras and optical apparatuses – investigations attesting to a mindset that is playful and humorous, as well as philosophical. With the often surprising and amusing experiments, he tries to create and visualize motions and phenomena that are imperceptible for the human eye. He assembles his objects, which almost function like representations of rules of geometry, from everyday objects and materials, which he places in unusual situations. Spreading out objects in two dimensions or representing  dimensions hidden from the human eye with their duality of dynamism and stillness result in very spectacular works. Csörgő has featured at prominent international exhibitions and art fairs. In 1999, he represented Hungary at the nation!s pavilion at the Venice Biennale; in 2001 he was awarded the Munkácsy Prize; he participated at the Istanbul Biennale in 2003, and the Biennale of Sydney in 2008; his Möbius Space earned what is one of the most important European recognitions in media art, the Nam June Paik Award.

Michal Bielický

Michael Bielicky (1954) emigrated from Czechoslovakia to Germany in 1969. After working as a photographer in the USA, he studied at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf (1984–1988), from 1987 as a student of Nam June Paik in his master class, whom he then served as an assistant until 1989. In 1988 he received a study grant from the Cité Internationale des Arts,
Paris. In 1991 he became one of the founding teaching staff in the department of New Media at the Akademie vytvarnych umení, Prague. Bielicky lives in Prague and Düsseldorf. Following his photographic work of the early 1980s, Bielicky first turned to video in 1984. One of his latest and more well-known works in this medium is »Vilém Flusser's Flow (Vilém Flussers Fluss)« (1991-1994). In the late 1980s, Bielicky developed a form of video sculpture with clear, linear structures. These have incorporated increasingly smaller monitors attached to curved rods so as to establish coordinates of energy in space . Since the mid-1990s Bielicky has pursued a number of projects related to de-materialized coordinates of energy: he uses satellite-controlled Global Positioning System technology to create interactive installations, in which his own movements serve as a representation of the movement of various categories of information through space and time. In his work, Bielicky gives form to the flow of information, at the same time drawing on traditional, often Jewish symbols. Affirming the enduring validity of these, he uses them as metaphors for contemporary experiences in the virtual information networks.

Pawel Janicki

Pawel Janicki (1974) is an independent media artist and producer working with generative music, microsound and algorithmic composition, interactive systems for performances and installations, and his own hard- and software. His work draws mainly on the achievements of music, contemporary and media art and posthumanist practice - but he constructs forms different from the existing ones. He engages a wide spectrum of techniques, approaches and protocols: creates works using synthetic senses, programming techniques — also in the modern, cognitive incarnation — and elements of space and material engineering. An important role in Janicki's creativity is drawn from historical and current contexts – in particular the perceived history of art and something that could be called the history of thinking. He cooperates with WRO Art Center, where he leads the WRO Laboratory.

SESSION III: Artwork October 29, 2021, 2–4.30 pm
AGH University of Science and Technology Krakow (PL) – Slovak National Gallery (SK) – VALIE EXPORT Center Linz (AT) – Tiziana Caianiello in collaboration with ZERO Foundation (DE)

The course New Media & Archive was created within the MU Programme for Internationalization 2021-2023 and with the Visegrad Fund support (CEAD: New Media Museums, 2021-2022).