We are currently in the Hotdock Project Space Galery
at the exhibition called Data Sanitary Day which is the result
of a research project by KEGA called “Hiking on the Data Trails”.
A platform was created for individual research for students from the Studio of Spatial Communications
of the Academy of Fine Arts.
The whole project is dedicated to data in the broader understanding
consisting not only of digital data but data of various contexts and layers.
A good example is a work by Almog Gabrieli that well characterizes the focus of the whole project.
His work is called “The White Sheet”. It metaphorically represents the assignment.
In his video, he shows a white sheet which one side covers something up and cancels out surrounding space
but on the other hand, it is also a certain material, a data entry of someone who worked on the fabric
or a family who grew the plant which the material is made of.
So, we are moving through various levels of data information.
We visited two cities, one of them being Jerusalem.
It is a controlled city, undergoing constant pressure of control,
only letting certain people in and the visitor feels constant pressure when visiting the city.
The other one was Belgrade. This city is going through trauma caused by the military conflict
that happened in the 1990s. It is going through a transformation
from a traumatized city into a city looking for its new face.
Student Dodo Kršek prepared an object – this is only a model
and he walked through Jerusalem with an object approximately this size,
he visited different locations, for example, Masada, various streets, and bazaars.
He always installed it into new contexts, drawing from Jewish mysticism and Kabbalah.
This is a work by student Dajana Marcinková, it depicts the cracks of the Wailing Wall
which she photographed and turned into interactive graphics.
The visitor can come, take a nail and leave their message.
In the original wall, people leave their messages on a folded piece of paper, but here the messages are public.
The piece “Holy Land” by Ivan Kalev is a collection of his documentary photos of Jerusalem
which he installed in a form of Christmas postcards.
It creates a metaphor for the city and its importance for all three religions present.
It looks more like photos from somewhere in California.
The piece by Matúš Pisarčík is called “Press Home to Unlock Dieffenbachia”.
It is quite eloquent of the current situation; the work depicts the transition of the real world into the virtual world;
or the confirmation of the real world by the virtual world and relationships.
The dialogue happening here has a private character,
it describes the unreal feelings and emotions which were moved from the reality into the virtual space, creating a feeling of emptiness.
The work of Eszter Kovacs, a student of Budapest Academy who was here on the Erasmus Programme,
is very interesting and concise, taking into consideration the topic of the workshop.
It depicts a simple action – Jerusalem sand and soil being sieved
and the smaller parts falling through on the ground and the larger parts staying on the top.
She metaphorically describes it in her text, emphasizing the importance of the small parts
which decide the final interpretation of the whole.
This is a work of student Daniel Rychlo called “Anatomy of Enlightenment”.
It is a video reconstruction of initially unrelated sketches and surreal ideas
which he created during his stay in Jerusalem.
Later he put them into a video, depicting his version of atmosphere and mysticism,
and some religious enlightenment in the city. It is intertwined with found footage clips from the internet.
To accompany the project “Hiking on the Data Trails” we composed a publication
containing all workshops, travels, works, texts for the works and for workshops.
It also includes collaborations with our partner institutions in Jerusalem and Belgrade.