Václav Janoščík is important Czech theorist and curator who focuses on contemporary theory and philosophy of art and lectures at leading Czech academies and universities (e.g. Academy of Fine Arts,  Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design, Film and Television School of Academy of Performing Arts, Philosophical Faculty of Charles University; all in Prague). The contribution for Unleashing Screensaver exhibition is the result of encouragement he has given his students at Film and Television School of Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and at Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design in Prague.

Our world is permeated by constant pressure concerning our work, efficiency, consumerism and even our futures, particularly at art schools. It seems our very future, not only labor and desires, has been privatized and commodified. Our classes avoid overviewing the historical or current trends in contemporary art, rather allowing us to propose our own original point of departure. Covering speculative, postinternet and even postcontmporary, we try not to simply accept international trends but to use and bend them so they can speak in general and personal forms and ideas. The assignments resulting from our seminars take resort in this situation. Accelerating along the lines of alienating streams, we try to unravel what is ours; dreams and anxieties, art and imagination.

Václav Janoščík

Thea Kleinhempel, Abhishek Chaudhary and Alexander Rossa: Obituary of a relationship from the heart of your Motherboard

The video essay is conceived as a performative meditation on the changing role of the humans in the evolving information landscape. As machines gain precedence over the human culture, we are also interacting with newer forms of re-imagining the machine as they revert a similar gaze on us, as humans. In our video essay, a spoken word performance envisions a machine speaking back to the human user about their slowly approaching disappearance. The recorded audio performance is rendered in a heightened ASMR format that blurs the lines between hypnotic and the sexual, the dreamlike and disturbing, when coupled the meditative visuals. As the devices we are accustomed interacting with gradually transform into other sensory inputs, we ask ourselves today, what will we be nostalgic about in the distant future, when the virtual experience we have then may no longer encompass the intimacy of touch and direct device interaction?

^{Part of Unleashing Screensaver & Unleashing exhibitions
Apr 1 – May 31, 2018
concept & coordination: (c) merry
supported by PAF & Teachers College, Columbia University and City of Brno}