24/1/2020 – 23/2/2020
The Earth is flat. Scientific laws do not function. But nobody cares. Masses of information continue to flow through the web of the multi-lane highway that is the internet. Everything previously discovered by Man collapses. There is no mechanics of motion; physics is just a word.
We perceive only through the eyes. Our eyes are indicators of new stimuli; we become mere observers. We assess information through our observational abilities, for in the world of science we are always solitary observers. Observation takes time; it is not an immediate phenomenon.
The American physicist Hugh Everett postulated the theory of two worlds. It is like with Schrödinger’s cat. In one world it is dead, and in the other it is alive.
But for now it is suffering, because the act of observation takes a certain amount of time for what we consider important and what we decide for. What is clear from the many-world theory is that it gives the precise location of neither space nor time. So how can we be 100% sure of anything?
Similarly, artist Natália Trejbalová bases her art on speculative fiction and conspiracy theories. The work exhibited in the gallery is a short film documenting her long-time work on a slowly created image. Gallery 35m2 becomes a laboratory for the viewer = observer. We sense that our presence is not here and now, but takes place in the near future, perhaps with non-living and non-human elements that have been transformed into artificial intelligence. In this case, we return to the idea that the surface of the Earth is flat and not geoid and ellipsoid. In her work, Trejbalová uses an exact creation of a particular world that raises the question of science-fiction reality. The viewer uses his or her natural observational skills to guess whether the image has been manipulated or not; whether it is living or artificial. Manipulation gains in strength.
After all, it is inconceivably easy to accept something as a valid formula without responsibly asking questions, doubting, and stepping out of our comfort zone.
Natália Trejbalová (* Košice 1989) lives and works in Milan and Bratislava. In her artistic practice she focuses on speculative fictions in forms of video, text, object or performance. And then we cut the ground from under is a first part of short film set to an alternative version of the planet Earth, which becomes flat in nearby future. Among her recent solo and group show belong: Teatrum Botanicum (2019, PAV, Turin, IT), Appocundria (2019, Casa Testori, Novate Milanese, IT), Screen Tearing (2019, Dimora Artica, Miláno, IT), Plastic Heart (2019, City gallery of Pardubice, Pardubice, CZ), Contingent Behaviours (2019, Gossamer Fog, London, UK), The Touch of Midas (2018, Oblastní Galerie, Liberec, CZ), Synthetic Hapticality (2018, Enclave Projects, London UK), Give Me a Body Then (2018, Altamura, IT), Solo Figli (2017, Esprit Nouveau, Bologna, IT) Cyphoria at 16a Quadriennale di Roma (2016, Rome, IT).
curated by Tereza Záchová
