Photo: Alina Matějová

Navigating Through eXistenZ

Theory of Interactive Media, Masaryk University (CZ)

How to navigate within the parallel and intertwined spaces we inhabit? How to connect to the flow of being, to collective memories, to planetary and individual consciousness? How to navigate our existence?
In a largely ethnographic way, the exhibition explores the connection between art, technology and society and how these elements influence and interact in the various spaces and contexts we inhabit and create. It focuses on exploring the POV experience of existence mediated by our bodies and senses, as well as their technological simulations and prostheses.

The naming of the exhibition is an appropriation of the title of the sci-fi film eXistenZ (Cronenberg, 1999) with the aim of promoting a dialogue between the film and the exhibition. The plot of the film follows a game designer playing a game she created herself. We are just like her, designers and players of the games we call our lives, trying to get beyond the surfaces of the visible and audible, trying to discern the patterns behind them, trying to reach beyond the boundaries defined by the rules of the game we play to find direction and hope in the mazes and traps of all these realities. To play these games, we traverse physical worlds (landscapes, cities, bodies, identities) and simulated digital worlds (digital games, social networks, and datasets of quantified selves). The exhibits are traces and records of games played not by conquerors but by ethnographers (wanderers, flaneurs and nomads).

  • Navigating through Body-scape

    Navigating through Body-scape

    Aneta Chatzigeorgiu (CZ), Polina Zaytseva (UA)

    Scent of a Rose The visual part consists of the scientific-artistic experiment Rose Ring, in which the author created an artifact in the form of a ring in the shape of a rose using her own bodily fluids. The result oscillates between jewelry, amulet and body extension.The soundtrack is made up of recorded and amplified…

  • Navigating through Data-scape

    Navigating through Data-scape

    Vojtěch Juránek (CZ), Adam Svoboda (CZ), Dan Klepáč (CZ), Deana Romana Kozubová (SK), Filip Kratochvíl (CZ), Matúš Nagy (SK), Erika Capová (SK), Karolína Sedláková (CZ)

    A Gamer’s Guide to the Metaverse The installation is a skill trainer for navigating the metaverse. The virtual gallery is a maze in which visitors discover exhibited works inspired by the history of media art. Audiovisual essays are results of dialogue with the history of media art, inspired by the challenges of life in the…

  • Navigating through Land-scape

    Navigating through Land-scape

    Bibiana Hroncová (SK)

    The Four Seasons The audiovisual work is the result of ethnographic research carried out in the Slovakian countryside. The result oscillates between audio and visual documentation of the current state of the landscape and an aesthetic experiment based on a remake strategy, in which Vivaldi’s Baroque composition The Four Seasons is transformed into a field…

  • Navigating through Sublime-scape

    Navigating through Sublime-scape

    Martina Komínková (CZ), Martin Flašar (CZ), Luboš Malinovský (CZ)

    Resonances and Strings Two electroacoustic compositions that capture the moments of a person’s encounter with phenomena that go beyond everyday experiences of the visible and audible world. Martina Komínková created compositions by the method of improvisation while staying in sacred spaces of churches (Resonance). Martin Flašar and Luboš Malinovský, using methods of non-intentionality and chance,…

  • Navigating through Urban-scape

    Navigating through Urban-scape

    Filip Johánek (CZ), Karolína Segéňová (SK), Tin Lai Man (HK)

    Collecting memories of Brno The audiovisual installation consists of two parts. The sound part is the result of time-lapse research into the soundscape of Brno and thus presents a sound portrait of the Moravian metropolis. The pictorial part presents Brno captured in photographs, which were subsequently processed into hallucinatory collective memories with the help of…

Masaryk University, Faculty of Arts (CZ)

Theory of Interactive Media (TIM) is a master’s degree program in digital arts built on theoretical, practical and project-based learning methods. Graduates are oriented in the history and theory of digital art and in its sociocultural context. Students are trained in curating digital art (online and offline) and gain experience with the student magazine JOINME production. Students often participate in local digital art festivals and exhibition events.

Credits

Curator and Producer: Jana Horáková
Guarantors of the Exhibited Works: Martin Flašar, Adam Franc, Jana Horáková, Tomáš Staudek.
Visual and exhibition design: Alina Matějová
Technical Support: Michael Franěk

Exhibiting artists:
Navigating through Land-scape
Audio/Video: Bibiana Hroncová (SK)

Navigating through Urban-scape
Audio: Filip Johánek (CZ), Karolína Segéňová (SK)
Video: Tin Lai Man (HK)

Navigating through Data-scape
VR gallery: Vojtěch Juránek (CZ), Adam Svoboda (CZ), Dan Klepáč (CZ), Deana Romana Kozubová (SK), Filip Kratochvíl (CZ), Matúš Nagy (SK), Erika Capová (SK), Karolína Sedláková (CZ).
AV essays: Roman Jančík (CZ), Jan Lokvenc (CZ), Markéta Šmoldasová (CZ), Samuel Olejár (CZ), Oskar Ladislav Hubáček (CZ), Eva Klimendová (CZ), Nicolas B. Adamec (CZ).

Navigating through Body-scape
Audio: Polina Zaytseva (UA)
Video: Aneta Chatzigeorgiu (CZ)

Navigating through Sublime-scape
Audio/Video: Martina Komínková (CZ), Martin Flašar (CZ), Luboš Malinovský (CZ).

The participation of Theory of Interactive Media at the Ars Electronica festival was supported by Masaryk University with a grant to support excellent study programs strengthening the excellence of the Theory of Interactive Media (MA) program (MUNI/ESPRO/0821/2023).