MAN, PUPPET AND SPACE
13. 9. – 11. 10. | Skutecký Street, Banská Bystrica
Vernissage: 13 September at 18:00
The Festival presents a new feature within the off-programme: the first outdoor theatre-art installation of artefacts by students and teachers of the Department of Intermedia and Digital Media, Faculty of Fine Arts of the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, dedicated to the theme Man, Puppet and Space. The installation is complemented by performances in the Central Slovak Gallery garden.
The installation was coordinated and planned over several months by a team led by assistant professor Viktor Fuček.
The installation represents a selection of works entered by over 15 students from the Department. The installation was made out by BDNR as directed by the head of the studio Katarína Mazáryová and Viktor Fuček.
EN TY TÁ
1. 10. – 6. 10. | 10:00 – 17:00
Performance in the Garden of the Dominik Skutecký Gallery. Author Fiktor Fuček.
Department of Intermedia and Digital Media, Faculty of Fine Arts, Academy of Arts in BB
The Department of Intermedia and Digital Media offers three types of degrees: bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral. The core curriculum plays major part in shaping the growth of the learners. The teaching facilitates artistic expression through new media. It supports independent creative thinking and an inventive, creative approach to practical assignments. It also supports teamwork and the gradually differentiating professional focus of the learners. Practical disciplines are characterised by continuous consultation and professional guidance respectful of constructive tutor–learner dialogue between. Lectures, and literary and artistic workshops support learning activities. Online documentation and information database (art.aku.sk) are an important communication tool.
Viktor Fuček
Viktor Fuček is an urban shaman and healer, visual artist, researcher and educator who uses rituals to explore the consciousness of space. He studied fine arts at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, Australian National University in Canberra, na Universität für angewandte Kunst in Vienna, at the College of Fine Arts and Architecture at the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava. In 2022, he completed his doctoral studies at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica with dissertation Architecture of Internal Relationships focusing on the connection between performance and architecture. He held and participated in several individual and collective exhibitions, such as The Door Through the Crack of Which the Moonlight Looks (Slovak National Gallery, Bratislava, 2024), Xenorhizomatic Geologies (New York, 2024), Perceiving (Com) Position (Taiwan, 2022), Prague Biennial (Prague, 2021). He was also finalist for several awards, such as the 2015 Oskar Čepan Award. Mr Fuček is assistant professor at the Department of Intermedia and Digital Media of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, an external lecturer at Universität für angewandte Kunst in Vienna and member of the Prague Public Space Lab.
exhibited works
MaMA 002_100 (2024) 200×70 / cardboard, wood, fabric, acrylic
The work is part of MaMA_100, cycle in-progress that is an attempt to come to terms with the loss of a loved one. The work does not aim for whiny adoration of an absent mother. On the contrary, through memory fragments (various assemblages created from clothes that used to belong to the deceased), the author conducts a playful dialogue with the departed. The work also includes a wooden doll made a few years ago by the author’s son Teodor Adamove. He perceived the result of his work as failure. The doll laid idle in the corner of the garden for years. The clash of the two facts (the mother of the thing – Teo the creator) in the whole of one work is particularly interesting in the context of the fact that the visual relationship between the late grandmother and her grandson is unfolding.
MaMA 001_100 (2024) 60×60 / canvas, fur, acrylic
Inter alia, this ready-made (Mum’s wolly hat) connotes admittedly (and adolescently) the universe into which MaMA has withdrawn. On the one hand, we can see the hat as a smiley; on the other hand, someone can see in it the body of a tarantula; it is also possible to look at the object (this entity) “merely” as a hat (which has its own scent, but does not have its own head).
JANO ADAMOVE (1971)
Visual artist, film theorist and lecturer. Since 2005, he has been working at the Department of Intermedia and Digital Media (Faculty of Fine Arts of the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica). He largely works on experimental video films with particular focus on topics such as memory, power, movement, time.
The work represents the transformation of body and soul in one. It is inspired by the chrysalis of a butterfly. Just as it undergoes transformation, we go through development. The hood shows two stages of development – a new beginning both physically and mentally.
The object in public setting offers a reflection on the theme of women’s housework and their often overlooked worth in society. The gesture also represents the transfer of women’s work from the invisible to the visible world.
Hung on hangers: casual clothes, rags, use of feminine elements such as lace and embroidery/T-shirts with messages, photos.
The piece expands the boundaries of my physical body and creates a personal protective space. The braid I used is made of artificial hair – kanekalon. I have been working with this material for five and a half years, while artificial hair is a constant part of my daily life. Considering this long-term interaction, I decided to make an object from them that surrounds me and has its own existence.
Sarah Kasanová (b. 2003), graduated in graphic design at the United School in Nižná nad Oravou. She is currently studying at the Academy of Arts in Banská Bystrica, majoring in Intermedia and Spatial Art.
The work was made with the idea of unintentionally venting one’s feelings and anger on others, rarely unintentionally on our loved ones especially. The scapegoat has a reflective film glued around its head to reflect whoever stands in front. It is designed to release anger. A sign next to the object reads: “Kick it out!”
“Translucent figure made of balloons and nylons dances in the wind, rising above the ground with ease, carrying along dreams.”
The work denotes the lightness of existence and the freedom that height and fantasy can bring us. Balloons represent the desire to soar above the mundane and rise to new heights, while nylons represent the connection to reality and earthly attachments. Together they create a harmonious contrast between dream and reality.
The shape of the object resembles nature and living organisms. Just as human elements occur naturally in nature, we can see them in inorganic things.
Mimicking organic forms found in nature without necessarily copying them. Playing around with experiment and chance.
Creating a non-human entity
“The world is full of persons, some of whom are human, and life is always lived in relation to others”. It is therefore “concerned with learning how to be a good person in respectful relationships with other persons
The artwork on the theme of HUMAN – DOLL – SPACE as the creation of an entity, a separate non-human being that inhabits a common space. I shall keep entering with this entity into non-verbal dialogue. This is happening while rediscovering the animistic approach to the world. New animism opens up possibilities of softening towards the world, empathy and healing, for it does not see the world as a dualistic, hierarchical relationship between man and other non-spiritual beings and objects, but as a relational network of diversely animated, enthusiastic and agitated beings.
The project will produce an object as a living entity that will inhabit a semi-public space – the quad. Structurally, it is a larger structure made of plastic bags (c. 30 metres in length) filled with air. After the initial installation, the entity will interact with its setting, thus creating unforeseen assemblages of matter, ideas and data. Incompleteness, variability and ambiguity are some adjectives that appear here, indicating the possibilities of the evolution of posthuman situation.