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Recordings of the Surface

exhibitors: Nikola Brabcová & Karin Šrubařová

curator: Tea Záchová

3. 5. – 13. 06. 2024 / Gallery 35M2

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An international project on which both artists worked as part of the two-year project Regeneration for the Artyčok internet platform concerned the erosion of soil and its condition, both in Iceland and in the Czech Republic. Together with the cameraman Ivan Svoboda, the artists took part in an international artistic-research project mapping soil erosion in Iceland and the Czech Republic. Within such a small geographical area, Iceland is home to the largest European deserts. This volcanic island, which is specific precisely because of its active volcanoes and the pressure of the thermal waters on its surface, at the same time reflects the crisis of soil in a story of lack of care for its condition.
“The story of our relationship to the earth is written more truthfully on the earth itself than on any page. There it endures. The earth remembers what we have said and what we have done.” At an exhibition for Gallery 35M2 entitled Recordings of the Surface, both artists narrate their story of a fascination with the land in which they play out a new dimension within the framework of new technologies. They no longer create a potential video essay entirely for the gallery, but rather create an artificial space for it, as well as virtual data which is not confined by the walls of the gallery but which, through transmission, can reach absolutely everybody. The artists here celebrate the skill of the surface and the capacity of the soil with the aid of a strong aesthetic dominance, which is brought far closer to humanity within moving pictures. However, this aesthetically exuberant canon is disrupted by further layered images, which from an abstract form develop into a more concrete and legible presentation. We do not have a conception of linear time, because the first time always arrived with the first nations that respected the land around themselves. The layer of soil is a system without which survival is impossible, all of us are within it and everything comes from it. This soil defends itself here, as if it were displayed within a crystalline body – one moment it is above the surface, the next below the surface in an indefinite, hibernating time. The work thus becomes interlocked as a living individual of the land into fragile communities, at the forefront of an absent presence, thanks to which it can narrate its own and their stories which enter into the structure of the surface. In a non-linear and poetic flow, the essay offers audiences a visual and auditory perception on several levels of the senses. The cascades of contrasts and antagonisms that we find within an intimate dimension as against a planetary one, in the Icelandic or the Czech landscape, inorganic or organic matter, thus create a mosaic of a layered view of the theme in question. Despite the fact that the authors touch upon living nature, a paradox appears here of digital technologies which contrast with living matter, and transform the shape of the landscape for several generations to come. As the botanist Robin Wall Kimmerer states in his book The Democracy of Species, soil matter existed here long before we arrived, and if we fail to act like a sister or brother to it, then we, like it, shall face extinction. It gives us everything, while demanding nothing from us. At the very outset it is necessary for us to stop – here, in time, to sit down and observe, to cast our gaze around and perceive, to experience and understand that we are constituted by what is around us. “All our actions are important. Every day you are creating the future.”

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directed by: Nikola Brabcová & Karin Šrubařová

camera: Ivan Svoboda, Jan Vidlička

music: Ewelina Vlček-Chiu aka Ai Fen

visual effects: Jan Vidlička

production: Artyčok.tv a 35M2 gallery 

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substances that we take for granted
complex mixtures of inorganic and organic matter
form temporary structures
landscape
the layer between the atmosphere and the parent rock
the surface on which we settle

soil is the uppermost part of the Earth‘s surface
live and inanimate nature
intersect here
we creatures and plants
can‘t exist without soil

we form a whole
we are both agents and actors
of bio-chemical and geo-chemical processes
more-than-human relationships
we are part of a mutual body
we depend on each other
thousands of years of human technology
inscribed into the landscape
and reshaping the surface of the Earth
the landscape as a medium of record
erosion

landscapes moving through the air
washed away by water
without vegetation cover
the wind blows away the entire soil profile
everything changes, creates and destroys at the same time
surface movements sink into the ground
and turn into the energies that sustain us
exploration is always driven by curiosity
the desire for transformation
monitoring technology
provide more planetary understanding
data layers
creates the landscape we know today
we are creating abstract surfaces
the only constant is change
the infinite displacement of matter
the cyclical process of which we are a part
a desert of infinite time
what possibilities of life persist?
to perceive, to understand, to renew
we see dead forests across fertile fields
soil is being extracted, the structure is crumbling
what are our bonds?
degradation, desertification, contamination
we feel the disintegration of environmental relationships,
symbiotic connections turning to sand
forcing us to change the way we farm
integrating sustainable strategies
topsoil is the most fertile
nourished soil feeds vegetation
and provides a source of energy,
organic matter
tiny roots in the soil resist erosion
vegetation forms a protective layer
a safe place to live

soil is the seat of roots

a slow and hidden process of degradation
will only become apparent through subsequent body symptoms

erosion is a natural process, essential for life on Earth
without erosion and sedimentation
fertile soils would never have been created

soil are living beings
different than human relationships

intensive agriculture, deforestation

everything changes, creates and destroys at the same time
the movements of the surface sink into the earth
turning into energies that sustain us

we give them a new form
they last for millennia

In a constant search for transformation
of previously untapped aspects,
taking and exploring

very different landscapes
substances of different qualities, colours and textures
from deep underground
towards the surface

removing them from their natural habitat

we move, regulate, control, automate

samples have no economic value
they are powerless

they are not a threat
they know the consequences

they can see millions of years ahead
they look back millions of years

the record always mimics reality
the appearance of safety

but the weather
We don‘t know

earth is always in motion
the Earth’s core energy
tectonic movements
fossils of animals and plants
narrative in non-human time
written in layers

how exactly did the non-living become animate?

we destroy systems we don‘t understand
they go beyond the perceptual field and disappear

timelessness
without memory

natural and technological intelligence
landscape as a medium of record

arrangement of sands
circles of drought
self-organization of matter

mobility

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