Artistic research
“What then was life? It was warmth, the warmth generated by a form-preserving instability, a fever of matter, which accompanied the process of ceaseless decay and repair of albumen molecules that were too impossibly complicated, too impossibly ingenious in structure. It was the existence of the actually impossible-to-exist, of half-sweet, half-painful balancing, or scarcely balancing,... Continue Reading →
My attempt to build up a multi-sensory image, involving the awareness of touch, scent and taste, through visuals alone. These are selected stills from my short film experiments.
I filmed the piece below while in Iceland, few years back. The elemental nature of Icelandic landscape offers a feast for the senses. I plan to return there to make another film next year, to explore and test ways of conveying its sensual richness to the viewer. Note: The Perpetual is drawn from Mount Analogue,... Continue Reading →
On the relationships of science and art, an excerpt from David Bohm's On Creativity "I have personally discovered that through talking with artists and correspondence with them, as well as through seeing their work, I have been greatly helped in my scientific research. The main effect of these contacts was to lead me to look... Continue Reading →
Over the last week my colleague Rosalyn Driscoll and I have begun developing ideas and artwork for our upcoming exhibition Generation. We are working with animal rawhide, tracing paper, fabric, sound, air and projected light. We try and respond to these different "materials" and observe how they interact. Roz and I are thinking about the... Continue Reading →
Improvised dinner These improvised dinners are recommended as a means of bringing together maximum originality, variety, surprise, unexpectedness and good humour. Of every cook it is asked that he acquire an attitude that: form and colour are just as important as taste can conceive of an original architecture for every dish, possibly different for each... Continue Reading →
Few weeks ago my friend A., an archeologist, has asked me whether I wanted anything from Iceland (she was going there for eight days to travel around the northern part of the island). “Bring me whatever you stumble over, whatever you dig out by the road along you way.” I told her. Her offer came... Continue Reading →
Jan Švankmajer's thoughts on Creativity, Alchemy and Surrealism I can’t imagine any form of creation, which doesn’t have a magical dimension. Or rather, I can, but it doesn’t interest me. Magic is a particular “active attitude to life”. However it is not just about mastering it, but transforming it because metamorphosis is the basis of every... Continue Reading →
I am currently preparing an exhibition together with my colleague Rosalyn Driscoll, entitled Generation. It consists of a series of videos projected onto sculptures made of rawhide. We have been looking at the ancient Greek myth of Demeter and Persephone as a trigger to explore the bonds and tensions between four generations of women. In... Continue Reading →
Jan Švankmajer's description of his own creative process, 1985 What is your own personal definition of poetry? For me the concept of poetry coincides with imagination. And the potency of imagination for me is also an evaluative criterion for poetry, whatever its medium of expression is: i.e. a pen, a brush or touch. It is... Continue Reading →
"To use a magnifying glass is to pay attention, but isn't paying attention already having a magnifying glass?" (From Gaston Bachelard's Poetics of Space) Here is an excerpt from my interview about Wistman's Wood, a video installation I made in 2o11. Wistman's Wood presents unique challenges and opportunities for a film-maker. What determined your approach... Continue Reading →
Few thoughts on The Thinking Hand (A book by the Finnish architect Juhani Pallasmaa) In his book The Thinking Hand, Pallasmaa, one of Finland’s most distinguished architects, examines the importance of the human hand as well as the whole body, in performing a creative act. He stresses the need for the reintroduction of the body... Continue Reading →
Tereza Stehlíková 