Blog posts
Posts
Na dohled od bronzového jezdce
By samotar, 4 March 2021
Z archivu:Mlha - ticho - temnota a bílé díry
By samotar, 7 October 2020
Zarchivu: Hůlna-kejdže
By samotar, 7 September 2020
Center for Land Use Interpretation
By samotar, 18 June 2020
Dawn Chorus Day - zvuky za svítání
By samotar, 30 April 2020
Z archivu: Bílé Břehy 2012 a Liběchov 2011
By , 3 April 2020
Z archivu: Krzysztof Wodiczko v DOXU
By samotar, 26 March 2020
GARY SNYDER: WRITERS AND THE WAR AGAINST NATURE
By samotar, 20 March 2020
Podoby domova: hnízda, nory, doupata, pavučiny, domestikace a ekologie
By samotar, 17 March 2020
Michel Serres: Transdisciplinarity as Relative Exteriority
By samotar, 5 November 2019
Pavel Ctibor: Sahat zakázáno
By samotar, 22 September 2019
Emmanuel Lévinas: HEIDEGGER, GAGARIN A MY
By samotar, 19 September 2019
Atmosférické poruchy / Atmospheric Disturbances - Ustí nad Labem
By samotar, 13 September 2019
Erkka Laininen: A Radical Vision of the Future School
By samotar, 10 August 2019
Anton Pannekoek: The Destruction of Nature (1909)
By samotar, 21 July 2019
Jack Burnham - Systémová estetika
By samotar, 5 March 2019
Co padá shůry - světlo, pelyněk, oheň a šrot
By samotar, 30 December 2018
2000 slov v čase klimatických změn - manifest
By samotar, 2 November 2018
Vladimír Úlehla, sucho, geoinženýrství, endokrinologie, ekologie a Josef Charvát
By samotář, 22 September 2018
Lukáš Likavčan: Thermodynamics of Necrocracy - SUVs, entropy, and contingency management
By samotar, 20 July 2018
Tajemství spolupráce: Miloš Šejn
By samotar, 27 June 2018
Invisible Images (Your Pictures Are Looking at You) Trevor Paglen
By samotar, 2 June 2018
KŘEST KNIHY KRAJINA V POZORU: THE LANDSCAPE IN FOCUS.
By samotar, 18 May 2018
Případ zchudlé planety:Vojtěch Kotecký
By samotar, 22 April 2018
Rozhovor na Vltavě: Jak umění reaguje na dobu antropocénu?
By samotar, 10 March 2018
Skolt Sámi Path to Climate Change Resilience
By samotar, 10 December 2017
Brian Holmes: Driving the Golden Spike - The Aesthetics of Anthropocene Public Space
By samotar, 22 November 2017
Ohlédnutí/Revisited Soundworm Gathering
By samotař, 9 October 2017
Kleté krajiny
By samotar, 7 October 2017
Kinterova Jednotka a postnatura
By samotař, 15 September 2017
Ruiny-Černý trojúhelník a Koudelkův pohyb v saturnských kruzích
By samotar, 13 July 2017
Upsych316a Universal Psychiatric Church
By Samotar, 6 July 2017
Miloš Vojtěchovský: Krátká rozprava o místě z roku 1994
By milos, 31 May 2017
Za teorií poznání (radostný nekrolog), Bohuslav Blažek
By miloš vojtěchovský, 9 April 2017
On the Transmutation of Species
By miloš vojtěchovský, 27 March 2017
Gustav Metzger: Poznámky ke krizi v technologickém umění
By samotař, 2 March 2017
CYBERPOSITIVE, Sadie Plant a Nick Land
By samotař, 2 March 2017
Ivan Illich: Ticho jako obecní statek
By samotař, 18 February 2017
Dialog o primitivismu – Lawrence Jarach a John Zerzan
By samotar, 29 December 2016
Thomas Berry:Ekozoická éra
By samotař, 8 December 2016
Jason W. Moore: Name the System! Anthropocenes & the Capitalocene Alternative
By miloš vojtěchovský, 24 November 2016
Michel Serres: Revisiting The Natural Contract
By samotař, 11 November 2016
Best a Basta době uhelné
By samotař, 31 October 2016
Epifanie, krajina a poslední člověk/Epiphany, Landscape and Last Man
By Samotar, 20 October 2016
Doba kamenná - (Ein, Eisen, Wittgen, Frankenstein), doba plastová a temná mineralogie
By samotař, 4 October 2016
Hledání hlasu řeky Bíliny
By samotař, 23 September 2016
Harrisons: A MANIFESTO FOR THE 21ST CENTURY
By , 19 September 2016
T.J. Demos: Anthropocene, Capitalocene, Gynocene: The Many Names of Resistance
By , 11 September 2016
Bratrstvo
By samotař, 1 September 2016
Neptunismus a plutonismus na vyhaslé sopce Bořeň
By , 14 August 2016
Murray Bookchin: Toward an Ecological Society/ K ekologické společnosti (1974)
By samotař, 31 July 2016
Metafory, endofyzika, manželé Themersonovi a Gordon Pask
By samotař, 15 July 2016
Anima Mundi Revisited
By miloš vojtěchovský, 28 June 2016
Simon A. Levin: The Evolution of Ecology
By samotař, 21 June 2016
Anna Remešová: Je možné představit si změnu?
By samotar, 20 June 2016
Jan Hloušek: Uranové město
By samotař, 31 May 2016
Josef Šmajs: Složí lidstvo zkoušku své racionální dospělosti?
By samotař, 20 May 2016
Manifest The Dark Mountain Project
By Samotar, 3 May 2016
Pokus o popis jednoho zápasu
By samotar, 29 April 2016
Václav Cílek: Antropocén – velké zrychlení světa
By Slawomír Uher, 23 April 2016
Nothing worse or better can happen
By Ewa Jacobsson, 5 April 2016
Real Reason we Can’t Stop Global Warming: Saskia Sassen
By , 18 March 2016
The Political Economy of the Cultural Commons and the Nature of Sustainable Wealth
By samotar, 12 March 2016
Jared Diamond - Easter's End
By , 21 February 2016
Felix Guattari - Three Ecologies (part 1)
By , 19 February 2016
W. H. Auden: Journey to Iceland
By , 9 February 2016
Jussi Parikka: The Earth
By Slawomír Uher, 8 February 2016
Brian Holmes: Extradisciplinary Investigations. Towards a New Critique of Institutions
By Stanislaw, 7 February 2016
Co číhá za humny? neboli revoluce přítomnosti
By Miloš Vojtěchovský, 31 January 2016
Podivuhodný osud polárníka a malíře Julia Payera
By , 23 January 2016
Red Sky: The Eschatology of Trans
By Miloš Vojtěchovský, 19 January 2016
#AKCELERACIONISTICKÝ MANIFEST (14. května 2013)
By samotar, 7 January 2016
The Forgotten Space: Notes for a Film
By , 7 January 2016
Rise and Fall of the Herring Towns:Impacts of Climate and Human Teleconnections
By , 25 December 2015
Hlubinná, temná, světlá i povrchová ekologie světa
By , 22 December 2015
Three short movies: Baroque Duchcov, New Lakes of Mostecko and Lignite Clouds
By Michal Kindernay, 21 December 2015
Lenka Dolanová: Umění mediální ekologie
By , 21 December 2015
Towards an Anti-atlas of Borders
By , 20 December 2015
Pavel Mrkus - KINESIS, instalace Nejsvětější Salvátor
By Miloš Vojtěchovský, 6 December 2015
Tváře/Faces bez hranic/Sans Frontiers
By Miloš Vojtěchovský, 29 November 2015
Josef Šmajs: Ústava Země/A Constitution for the Earth
By Samotar, 28 November 2015
John Jordan: The Work of Art (and Activism) in the Age of the Anthropocene
By Samotar, 23 November 2015
Humoreska: kočky, koulení, hroby a špatná muška prince Josefa Saského
By Samotar, 13 November 2015
Rozhovor:Před věčným nic se katalogy nesčítají
By Samotar, 11 November 2015
Lecture by Dustin Breiting and Vít Bohal on Anthropocene
By Samotar, 8 November 2015
Antropocén a mocné žblunknutí/Anthropocene and the Mighty Plop
By Samotar, 2 November 2015
Rory Rowan:Extinction as Usual?Geo-Social Futures and Left Optimism
By Samotar, 27 October 2015
Pavel Klusák: Budoucnost smutné krajiny/The Future of a Sad Region
By ll, 19 October 2015
Na Zemi vzhůru nohama
By Alena Kotzmannová, 17 October 2015
Upside-down on Earth
By Alena Kotzmannová, 17 October 2015
Thomas Hylland Eriksen: What’s wrong with the Global North and the Global South?
By Samotar, 17 October 2015
Nýey and Borealis: Sonic Topologies by Nicolas Perret & Silvia Ploner
By Samotar, 12 October 2015
Images from Finnmark (Living Through the Landscape)
By Nicholas Norton, 12 October 2015
Bruno Latour: Love Your Monsters, Why We Must Care for Our Technologies As We Do Our Children
By John Dee, 11 October 2015
Temné objekty k obdivu: Edward Burtynsky, Mitch Epstein, Alex Maclean, Liam Young
By Samotar 10 October 2015, 10 October 2015
Czech Radio on Frontiers of Solitude
By Samotar, 10 October 2015
Beyond Time: orka, orka, orka, nečas, nečas, nečas
By Samotar, 10 October 2015
Langewiese and Newt or walking to Dlouhá louka
By Michal Kindernay, 7 October 2015
Notice in the Norwegian newspaper „Altaposten“
By Nicholas Norton, 5 October 2015
Interview with Ivar Smedstad
By Nicholas Norton, 5 October 2015
Iceland Expedition, Part 2
By Julia Martin, 4 October 2015
Closing at the Osek Monastery
By Michal Kindernay, 3 October 2015
Iceland Expedition, Part 1
By Julia Martin, 3 October 2015
Finnmarka a kopce / The Hills of Finnmark
By Vladimír Merta, 2 October 2015
Od kláštera Osek na Selesiovu výšinu, k Lomu, Libkovicům, Hrdlovce a zpět/From The Osek Cloister to Lom and back
By Samotar, 27 September 2015
Sápmelažžat Picnic and the Exploration of the Sami Lands and Culture
By Vladimir, 27 September 2015
Gardens of the Osek Monastery/Zahrady oseckého kláštera
By ll, 27 September 2015
Workshop with Radek Mikuláš/Dílna s Radkem Mikulášem
By Samotářka Dagmar, 26 September 2015
Czech Radio Interview Jan Klápště, Ivan Plicka and mayor of Horní Jiřetín Vladimír Buřt
By ll, 25 September 2015
Bořeň, zvuk a HNP/Bořeň, sound and Gross National Product
By Samotar, 25 September 2015
Já, Doly, Dolly a zemský ráj
By Samotar, 23 September 2015
Up to the Ore Mountains
By Michal, Dagmar a Helena Samotáři , 22 September 2015
Václav Cílek and the Sacred Landscape
By Samotář Michal, 22 September 2015
Picnic at the Ledvice waste pond
By Samotar, 19 September 2015
Above Jezeří Castle
By Samotar, 19 September 2015
Cancerous Land, part 3
By Tamás Sajó, 18 September 2015
Ledvice coal preparation plant
By Dominik Žižka, 18 September 2015
pod hladinou
By Dominik Žižka, 18 September 2015
Cancerous Land, part 2
By Tamás Sajó, 17 September 2015
Cancerous Land, part 1
By Tamás Sajó, 16 September 2015
Offroad trip
By Dominik Žižka, 16 September 2015
Ekologické limity a nutnost jejich prolomení
By Miloš Vojtěchovský, 16 September 2015
Lignite Clouds Sound Workshop: Days I and II
By Samotar, 15 September 2015
Recollection of Jezeří/Eisenberg Arboretum workshop
By Samotar, 14 September 2015
Walk from Mariánské Radčice
By Michal Kindernay, 12 September 2015
Mariánské Radčice and Libkovice
By Samotar, 11 September 2015
Tušimice II and The Vicarage, or the Parsonage at Mariánské Radčice
By Samotar, 10 September 2015
Most - Lake, Fish, algae bloom
By Samotar, 8 September 2015
Monday: Bílina open pit excursion
By Samotar, 7 September 2015
Duchcov II. - past and tomorrow
By Samotar, 6 September 2015
Duchcov II.
By Samotar, 6 September 2015
Arrival at Duchcov I.
By Samotar, 6 September 2015
Poznámka k havárii rypadla KU 300 (K severu 1)
By Samotar, 19 August 2015
Iceland Expedition, Part 2
Report by Julia Martin
with Finnur Arnar Arnarson, Karlotta Blöndal, Pavel Mrkus, Greg Pope, Ivar Smedstad, Diana Winklerová
(continued)
The next three days were devoted to the core question of the expedition: How to trace and reveal the complex ecologies of human-nonhuman relationships, which transform and create landscapes and cultural habits through visible and invisible processes?
Day 5: Alcoa aluminium smelter
On day five we travelled to Reyðarfjörður, a small town on the east coast where the Alcoa Fjarðaál aluminium smelter is located. A guided tour gave us a good impression of the enormous size of the factory, its production capacity, and of the company's very well functioning public relations department. Our guide also mentioned the economic risk involved in using renewable energy sources such as hydropower: In case of a power shortage, which could be due to a very long winter, resulting in low water levels in the reservoirs, and therefore low electricity production, the factory would not be fully operational. Once shut down the factory's melting pots would require a whole year to be fired up again. Unsurprisingly, the currently very low water levels of Kárahnjúkar's reservoir (the winter had been very long) were a serious cause of concern. Before driving back home, we looked at the local extensions of Alcoa’s presence in Reyðarfjörður: the newly built gigantic sports hall sponsored by Alcoa, the new highrise buildings and bungalows implanted into the fishing village, expecting Alcoa workers as new inhabitants, the abandoned work camp for the factory's construction workers which is now gradually being transported to the north of the country where a new silicon factory is going to be built.
In the evening, we held an informal artist talk in Seyðisfjörður's community house. Greg Pope and Diana Winklerová shared their work with the group and with Skaftfell's artists-in-residence.
Day 6: Kárahnjúkar Hydroelectric Project
On day six we expanded the "ecological object" of the Alcoa smelter and looked for the means upon which its operation depends: We drove into the highlands to the Kárahnjúkar dam. Along the way we saw the transmission lines connecting the smelter with Fljótsdal Power Station, we listened to the humming of their transformator station, we saw lake Lagarfljót, whose colour has changed from milky green to milky grey after the dam became operational. Once arrived at the site, we explored the gigantic structure of the dam itself, noticed the marks of wind erosion on the banks of the only partially filled reservoir, and saw the dry canyon where once a river had been flowing freely. The group was stunned by the silence of the place: no sound of flowing water, no birds, and – exceptional for the highlands – no wind on that day.
On the way back, the group experienced a bath in a hot spring up in the highlands. Drilling for this hot water in the ground provides affordable heating for most households in Iceland.
In the evening, Pavel Mrkus and Ivar Smedstad shared their work with the expedition group and with Skaftfell's artists-in-residence.
Day 7: Héraðsflói Estuary
On the next day, we looked at the two rivers that have been affected by the construction of Kárahnjúkar dam. Driving to Húsey, a remote farm in the Héraðsflói estuary, we followed Jökulsá á Dal, the dammed river that is now for most of the year fed by rainwater instead of glacial water.
Further in the south, the other river, Lagarfljót, makes its own way through the estuary. Its waters have turned greyish-brown from increased glacial sediments, because Jökulsá á Dal's glacial waters have not only been stopped by the hydroelectric project's reservoir but have also been redirected through tunnels into the powerstation and from there into Lagarfljót river. The redirection of one river into the other has caused the aquatic life and diversity in Lagarfljót to decrease dramatically.
From Húsey we walked towards the coastline as far as we could go, looking for the place at which both modified rivers flow together before entering the sea. The difference in their water colour is profound and clearly visible.
In the evening, back in Seyðisfjörður, Karlotta Blöndal and Finnur Arnar Arnarson gave an informal presentation of their work for the expedition group and Skaftfell's artists-in-residence.
Day 8: Reflection and presentation
On day eight we prepared for our public presentation of the Frontiers of Solitude project, which was held in the afternoon in Seyðisfjörður's theatre space. The organisers gave a comprehensive overview of the project's intentions and partners, and outlined the expedition program. The participating artists presented initial responses to their experiences of the encountered places and issues, and opened up a discussion with the audience. The conversation revolved around the Kárahnjúkar case, democracy, activism, local passivity as a cultural trait, the lack of a willingness to plan and make decisions, the touristic gaze, the dimensionality and relativity of local environmental issues in relation to the rest of the world, and the gap between self-perception and outside perception.
Day 9: Travel observations
On day nine we drove back to Reykjavík, stopping at the Geological Research and Heritage Center Breiðdalssetur, where we visited the exhibition "Parallel Line Up" and spoke to the artist Jenny Brockmann and to the center's director Christa Maria Feucht about their individual approaches to fieldwork. Jenny Brockmann's artistic practice links geology and weather, and during her research in Iceland she has been able to explore and appropriate various techniques of measuring and recording, as used in geological field expeditions.
The rest of the day and evening saw us travelling along the south coast of Iceland, stopping briefly at the famous glacial lagoon Jökulsárlón, where the topic of the touristic gaze came up once again with force.
Day 9: Art and activism
In Reykjavík we had a meeting with author and activist Andri Snær Magnason at Toppstöðin, a former power plant which has been transformed into a center for cultural entrepreneurs, activists, and artists. With Andri we spoke about the writing strategies for his book and movie Draumalandið, the development of his writing practice as a whole, how to sustain an investment in activism, and about the latest developments in Iceland's energy policy. We also discussed poetry as a political agent and as a method to bring disparate elements of a complex system into direct contact and context with each other – for example linking, through poetic association, the political, psychological, and socioeconomic aspects of the Kárahnjúkar project.
In the afternoon we visited the National Gallery and spoke to the director of the Woody Vasulka Chamber research and archiving project. The day – and the expedition – ended with a fabulous dinner at Finnur Arnar Arnarson's house in downtown Reykjavík.
Day 10: Departure day for all
Pavel Mrkus
The Fall
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Diana Winklerová
Only in fragments are we able to perceive the world around us. Our senses head towards a fraction of reality, which is above that filtered by the urge of the mind.
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Field Work and Ecology
This expedition through Iceland will lead participants to various locations in the South, East and North of Iceland where the untapped sources of renewable energy – water, steam, and wind – as well as the impacts of hydro- and geo
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Skaftfell
Skaftfell Center for Visual Art, located in Seyðisfjörður, plays the essential role of presenting, discoursing and encouraging the development of contemporary art in eastern Iceland.
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Julia Martin
The Iceland expedition: Tracing hyperextended objects and their ecological agency.
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Greg Pope: Lagoon
Lagoon audiovisual performance 20 min
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Ivar Smedstad
Marble Warble is an audiovisual work recorded in one take at the grave of Maria Georgsson, born Wathne (1.3.1885 - 28.12.1912), in Seyðisfjörður, Iceland.
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Karlotta J. Blöndal
Frontiers of Solitude (union/mediation)
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Lisa Paland
Lisa Paland (b. 1989) studied cultural and media education in Merseburg, Germany with main focus on digital and analogue photography. She finished her B.A.
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Finnur Arnar Arnarson: Ignorant and Happy
About liking and disliking at the same time.
About being schizophrenic, ignorant and happy.
I love toasted bread.
I hate power plants.
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