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Michael Bielický & Kamila B. Richter (CZ) → Columbus 2.0

19–24
  • Hradčany
  • Interactive projection

About project

We are faced with a constant, exponential increase in information. As we try to navigate this sea of news, we feel a certain vulnerability, perhaps like Columbus once did when he set sail into the unknown waters of an endless ocean. The year 1492 marked the beginning of two diametrically opposed events. Christopher Columbus’s sailing off the Spanish coast marked not only the beginning of the modern era, but also the end of a long era of two cultures that shaped the development of Spain and Europe for centuries. 

Today’s information society faces the challenge of finding the right navigation philosophy and tools to steer a rapidly growing digital environment. Columbus 2.0 uses an interactive navigation system that transforms the latest news from the web into waves of information, creating the illusion of a dynamically undulating textual space that resembles an ocean. By turning the ship’s rudder, the navigator can sail through the sea of information, experiencing an endless tsunami of information and crossing imaginary boundaries between different languages.

Artist

Michael Bielický has lived in Germany since 1969. He studied fine arts at the Academy in Dusseldorf under Nam-June Paik, with whom he later worked as an assistant. In 1991 he founded and directed the first ever New Media Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Since 2006, he has held the chair of Media Art at the University of Art and Design at the ZKM in Karlsruhe. Bielický is one of the first artists to develop work with electronic and digital technologies in the European and Czech environment. Most often he works with themes and tools of communication, navigation, video and VR technologies and in recent years also with web-based information in public space. His work has often been developed in collaboration with the ZKM in Karlsruhe, and presented at the Ars Electronica festival and in art museums such as the Centre Pompidou in Paris and MoMA in New York. 

Kamila B. Richter collaborates with Michael Bielicki on a number of digital projects, especially in the field of information technology. A graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague and the Technikon Natal University in Johannesburg, she has begun to explore the coonection of classical painting, printmaking and digital technologies. She is working on a unique method based on the transfer of data from failing digital media to the medium of oil painting, using the techniques of medieval painting.

Location

Kamila B. Richter and Michael Bielicky's projection of undulating texts spills over into the scribbled sgraffiti on the facade of Schwarzenberg Palace, a place with a past as turbulent as the tsunami of information. The Schwarzenberg Palace was built on the site of four townhouses that were destroyed by fire in 1541. During its existence, the Renaissance residence changed hands several times, and only in the 18th century did it become the property of the Schwarzenberg family. At the beginning of the last century, the Wehrmacht set up a military museum in the building, and after further vicissitudes of the previous regime, the National Gallery in Prague only acquired it in 2002 – including the courtyard, which also houses a rudder for sailing through the stormy projection.

Supported by

  • Partner of the installation

    National Gallery Prague

  • Supported by

    Christie Digital