 New media, as an independent field of study at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Technical University in Košice (Slovakia), came into existence not long ago, however during this short time the students lead by Anna Tretter, the Head of Department, justified the existence of this department by the quality of their work and their works started to belong among the best that is being created at this faculty.
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Videoart from Košice
New media, as an independent field of study at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Technical University in Košice (Slovakia), came into existence not long ago, however during this short time the students lead by Anna Tretter, the Head of Department, justified the existence of this department by the quality of their work and their works started to belong among the best that is being created at this faculty. The selected video works of four students (Beata Kolbašovská, Jakub Pišek, Richard Kitta, Juraj Sasák) are specific by their gentleness, virtual simplicity, but also playfulness, conceptual colouring and a sensitive interconnection of the acoustic component of the work with the visual one.
Richard Kitta (NATUreCORD) makes reference to the old gramophone records letting us become absorbed by the sounds/music of the Earth from bird songs to the bursts of city sounds reacting to the cyclic way of Nature, agrarian nations, with a warning against imprisonment in the urban space of today’s cities and unidimensional focusing on technological progress as well as uncontrolled expansion of our civilisation, which can lead to a collapse, referring to a certain vicious circle in which we have found ourselves. Although the videoart by Beata Kolbašovská (without a title) strikes by its simplicity at first, it offers a interesting visual experience. Footage of author’s spinning motion covered from above her head is presented simultaneously in divided screen, one part showing front while the other presents the reality as seen from her back. Music selection of the artwork raises the perception of visual component and shifts forward a new interpretation level and together with an amusing conclusion it offers a wide range of interpretation possibilites. Videowork marked by various comprehension options and a certain degree of vagueness is that of Juraj Sasák (Parallelism). He also uses picture division and backround sound to amplify almost mysterious atmosphere, which is underlined by the autumn nature/countryside and the ending and these together encourage contemplation of our reception of the world around us, spiritual, supernatural and the nature of being. Quite different is video of Jakub Pišek (Project Hutník) which is playing with pixels and an attempt to brighten up an empty ruined building of former Hotel Hutník. This was eventually intended to lead to a transformation of the hotel facade into an oversize screen. Interestingly, Jakub Pišek was not familiar with the fact that a similar project had been carried out in Berlin and Paris (Blinkenlights) which later made him to abbadon his project.
Currently these students are dealing mainly with interactive multimedia installations using the whole range of means of expression offered by videoart production, but also the wide possibilities offered by interactive installations, which thematically transfer into a game, (Jakub Pišek – interactive vidoart installations controlled by motion or sound) through a critical reflection of kitsch, pop culture, chatting and internet (Beata Kolbašovská – stylized videoart installations using transformations of pictures shot real time by web-cameras controlled by the percipient, Juraj Sasák –an internet experiment of shooting a hen with the webcamera in which a hen is caged with a keyboard and assigned nickname in one of the many chat rooms) to a critical reflection of religion, prophecies and manipulation by the media (Richard Kitta – interactive installation in which percipient’s heartbeat is recorded by a stethoscope and is followed by a real time transformation into syllables and words by which a dark face is then addressing the percipient from the television screen) etc. Mgr. Oliver Tomáš
video: B. Kolbašovská, J.Sasák
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