Alena Kotzmannová
Tomáš Vaněk

Katherine Kastner: Alena and Tomáš, what can you tell us about the work you are preparing to show in Reykjavík?

Tomáš Vaněk: I was very intrigued by the series of photographs that Alena recently showed me. As she presented them, so very carefully and without a word, some of the photographs seemed to give off a murmur and hum, and even others a clink or clank. I might be exaggerating a bit, but the sensation of sound was there. For this reason, I proposed to create a sound situation to go with her work, and so consequently we are now working together on an audio-visual ‘presentation’ – an installation where visitors will be able to view a projection of Alena’s photographs while listening on headphones to sounds I will have created specifically for this series of selected works. The binaural recording that I am making focuses on the concept of ‘location’ – the location where the photographer made the photograph, and the ‘location’ that the viewer sees in the photograph.

Alena Kotzmannová: In addition to the new project I am working on with Tomáš, I will also be exhibiting my photographic series Lost Highway. The subject of this series of four photographs is an unfinished highway bridge that was supposed to be a part of a trans-european highway (under construction from 1939-42 and 1945-50). There were only a few dozen meters missing for its completion when the Czechoslovak Socialist Republic government decided instead in favor of another project for the valley - a dammed reservoir. The bridge remains standing even today: a truncated torso over the surface of the water like a symbol of unfulfilled dreams, an image representing the idea of an unattainable distance. Its curious immersion in the water makes me think of a shipwreck – the image of a wreck. It’s not the object itself that is the wreck, but the surrounding area.
Another work that I would like to present is a new video work, which combines various directions of movement, called Shore Patrol. Nothing in the picture stands still – constant motion in diametrical directions evoking a feeling of suspense.

KK: Both you draw inspiration for your work from your immediate environment – the place you are in at that moment and all that surrounds you, even if it is just a temporary environment: Tomáš, your work – your Particips – are in fact very site specific, created for a specific time and place; and Alena, your series have been inspired by captured moments and situations collected over longer periods of time from your travels, both near and far. What was your reaction when we told you we wanted to exhibit a project of your work in Reykjavík? Did the location in any way influence the concept of your new joint project?

AK: Themes that are related to, for example, the midlands / the edges of the earth / the sea / the horizon / infinity... and the like, come up again and again in my work. So Reykjavík, as a harbor city, is, as you can imagine, a very appealing place for me. I have never been to Iceland, but in my imagination it is a country that also has a kind of fantasy that blurs the border between reality and fiction. This is a phenomenon that also appears in my work. The selection of Reykjavik for this event is also, or course, a way of confronting a given impression with reality.

TV: Of course I am very curious about the place and area, it creates a definite impression in the mind, but I don’t feel constrained by it. Alena and I developed the concept for the project that we are preparing for Reykjavik in Prague, but thanks to the special atmosphere in Alena’s photographs, I have a feeling that the place where the project will be presented can in some way have an impact. But, in the end this is not really what it is about. The most important thing for me is the participative approach, which I often use in my work in order to go places that I, alone, would never be able to go.

KK: Both of you seem to be interested, even fascinated, by what exists on periphery of our perception – things that are present somehow, but that we don’t notice. Why is that? Are you trying to draw our attention to something?

AK: I think you could certainly say that about most of my photographic series or installations, but it’s not so easy for me to explain why I am so interested in this phenomenon of that, which is not apparent at the first level of our perception. I think that is has something to do with an inverse feeling, where if a person is ‘tuned in’ to a certain susceptibility, these previously hidden phenomenon, themselves, call out to be heard. Then there is a kind of dialogue, and frequently also an encounter where ‘another reality’ is pulling at what we usually consider to be the reality. That is what I am trying to capture. My focus however is not to manipulate reality, and I do not use any digital post production in my work in the pursuit of this aim. I am much more interested in detecting existing hidden layers of perception.

TV: That, which exists, as it were, on the ‘periphery’ of our perception, is only temporarily on the periphery up until the moment when you notice it. Then, at that moment, even if only briefly, it becomes the center of attention. It’s a question of which way you turn, which direction you look in and what you want to see. I use these kind of experiences to create situations that give the viewer/visitor the possibility to be „there” where I was.

KK: What role, if any, does creating a narrative play in your work?

AK: The narrative is a way of sharing individual experiences, which is closely related to collective memory. Today, stories have a different role that they had, for instance, at the beginning of human civilization. The storytellers and heroes have changed. Now, all you have to do is keep pressing the change channel button on the TV remote control to watch several stories going on at the same time. And that, of course, presents a challenge for work which depends on the perception of the story that is not linear, where the layers of the plot blend together in space and time and can be read in different directions, where there is no end and no beginning. And that is what our joint installation is about.

TV: Yes, channel surfing is a peculiar discipline; the concrete mechanism of jumping from channel to channel is in its own way a story. The linearity is then only in the speed, if it happens faster or slower, and direction. This is a specific phenomenon of the today’s world. We all know how to click through the channels on the remote; almost everyone has had this experience. Concerning my work, I am often, in fact, more interested in the mechanics of the story than in the plot or descriptions. It is a kind of deconstructive game where you often have to fall back in order to move ahead.

KK: Would you like to go to Reykjavik this July?

TV: Yes!

AK: For sure. I would love to come by boat.