Artistic research
“As a house of moving pictures, film is as habitable as the house we live in.” (Guiliana Bruno) Storyboard/ mood sheet for Melusine, 2010 (dir. Tereza Stehlikova) During the process of my PhD research I came to realise that I was haunted by certain tenacious memories from my childhood, and in particular by the house... Continue Reading →
Second: Aerofood, tactile, with sounds and scents (devised by Fillia). Here there are few little complications. Eating futuristically, one uses all the five senses: touch, taste, smell, sight and hearing. We put to the reader a few other rules for the perfect dinner which will help us to enjoy fully the taste of all the... Continue Reading →
Railtracks is a collaboration between John Berger and Anne Michaels, two writers of remarkable achievement. Their sensual and exploratory dialogue is accompanied by my own photographs, documenting a journey by narrow gauge train through the winter landscapes of Southern Bohemia, which I took on the day of a winter solstice, in 2007. J. The whistle,... Continue Reading →
"If you look at the map of Europe, you will see in its north-western corner lying just under the Arctic circle a large island..." William Morris From William Morris's Icelandic Journal Tuesday 18th July 1871 …Still down, and the hills get lower now; I note here our riding over huge waste of black sand all... Continue Reading →
Jan Švankmajer on FOOD Although we called our exhibition Food, it doesn’t mean that we consider what we do as some kind of “ nourishment for the spirit” or that we will be serving goulash in our exhibition, but because food is a short, easily comprehensible word, while the function it describes is practiced universally.... Continue Reading →
Summer Luncheon For Painters and Sculptors After a long period of rest, a painter or sculptor who wants to take up his creative activities again at three o’clock on a summer afternoon may vainly try to excite his artistic inspiration with a succulent – traditional meal. Weighed down, he would then have to walk to... Continue Reading →
[The past is] somewhere beyond the reach of intellect, and unmistakably present in some material object (or in the sensation which such an object arouses in us), though we have no idea which one it is. As for the object, it depends entirely on chance whether we come upon it before we die, or whether... Continue Reading →
Tactility and Film Jan Švankmajer's interview, with Tereza Stehlíková 2011 1. What methods do you consciously employ in order to make your films more tactile? I have in mind both in pre-production [choice of location, experiments], production, and post-production [particular methods of editing etc]? Until my first experiments with tactile objects I was unaware about... Continue Reading →
This is a 13 minute documentation of one of my tactile workshop, performed at the Royal College of Art, London, between 2005 - 2009 Tactile workshops have been a vital part of my personally tailored methodology. They functioned as a testing ground for various practical propositions, as well as an imaginative way of gaining new... Continue Reading →
Decalogue by Jan Švankmajer 1. Remember there is only one form of ‘poetry’. The opposite of poetry is professional expertise. Before you start making a film, write a poem, paint a picture, create a collage, write a novel, essay etc. Only by cultivating your ability for universal expression will you ensure you will produce a... Continue Reading →
Flower, fruit and vegetable portraits created by Giuseppe Arcimboldo (1526 -1593) Carrot + Trousers = Professor (formula by the Futurist Poet of National Record Farfa) A raw carrot standing upright, with the thin part at the bottom, where two boiled aubergines are attached with a toothpick to look like violet trousers in the act of... Continue Reading →
From the Wedding Banquet: Some sauteed mushroom are served next, pompously praised by the usual maniacal huntsman: "I gathered them all by myself, between bagging a partridge and a hare in the Pistoia woods, drenched with rain. There's every kind of mushroom , except the poisonous one...unless my myopia has played an ugly trick on me.... Continue Reading →
Tereza Stehlíková 