The combination of the cultural platform Signal Festival, which brings a unique artistic experience in the public space of Prague at night, and the unique Czech company Prusa Research, which has succeeded in its field and has become a benchmark in the world of DIY creation and production of 3D printers. These seemingly disconnected institutions brought the Signal Calling challenge to the cultural space in 2019. From the beginning, this platform aimed to introduce young art to a wide audience, and the professional base of the PrusaLab creative workshop became the means to achieve such a goal – it provided its technological background and carried out one selected project each year through a prototyping process; from the beginning to a full-fledged confrontation with masses of spectators at one of the most attended cultural events in the country.<\/p>\n
In 2019, a pair of architects, Petr Vacek and Adam Cigler, succeeded in the open call with their project “Reflection”, a hexagonal robotic mirror array, fully controllable to create a dynamic reflective sculpture two meters in diameter. The first edition tested the capacities of both institutions to the limit and as it was a very ambitious project, the pre-agreed limits ceased to apply for a while and the installation received maximum attention from all participants. However, the exhausting project rewarded everyone handsomely and Reflection became the most successful installation from the Signal Calling project – which, of course, does not diminish the quality of all subsequent projects.<\/p>\n
During 2020, when the festival was cancelled at the last minute (due to pandemic measures), the Living Forest installation by artist Kate\u0159ina Blahutov\u00e1 was being worked on. It was finally presented at the festival in 2021 and corresponded perfectly with the ecological focus of the whole edition. The fundraising installation raised over seventy thousand crowns, which were awarded to the ecological association “Planting Trees”. In subsequent editions, the installations resulting from the project did not fail to fit in the programme, presenting contemporary local artists as creative and explorative individuals who are not only interested in interactive digital art, but equally interested in local context and global issues. The Nezmar installation by three students of the Liberec School of Art (from the architecture and digital art studios) O. Drahokoupil, V. Plavec and F. Zeman was very popular with the audience. The combination of a seemingly living organism and the natural effect of luminescence also required consultation with capacities from chemical engineering academies.<\/p>\n
The volumetric display, Nexus, was the winner of the penultimate edition of the challenge in 2023. The pair of authors, Luk\u00e1\u0161 D\u0159evjan\u00fd and Lubo\u0161 Zbranek (assisted by David Mina\u0159\u00edk and Michal Mitro), took inspiration from both theatre set design and interactive digital processes. The Nexus, which functions as an arbitrary kit of repeating light elements, is modular and can be used to grow a selected formation, whether artificial or natural. As such, it provides the basis for the growth of many other variants and follow-on projects.<\/p>\n
Over the five years of the challenge, the selected artworks, following a sophisticated curated process, have been presented as part of the Signal Festival, facing the attention of countless audiences over four autumn evenings. Often the installations have also travelled to festivals or cultural events of a similar nature. Thanks to the honest work of the designers, who often also emphasized the foldability of the created object, the installations visited France, Iceland, Italy, Switzerland and even the United Arab Emirates. They have also often been part of commercial presentations or domestic projects – such as the Blik Blik light festival in Pilsen.<\/p>\n
Over the course of five years, both institutions have invested millions of crowns in the project. Whether in the form of dedicated professional training or as direct financial support. Over the years, more than a hundred different artists have submitted their projects to the call. Everyone who was willing had the opportunity to confront their ideas with the experienced curatorial team. Even though only a few projects were ultimately selected, Signal Calling still represents a unique and stable platform where creators from the visual and artistic fields can meet engineers, architects or designers. It is the combination of the Signal Festival and PrusaLab that allows the two worlds to merge into one sustainable ecosystem in which the strengths of both are amplified in an excellent synergy.<\/p>\n
This year, as part of the Signal Calling project, both institutions will present an installation by the emerging Czech artist Kry\u0161tof Br\u016fha, who won this year’s Jind\u0159ich Chalupeck\u00fd Prize. Kry\u0161tof Br\u016fha has long excelled in combining sensory technologies with immersive visual aesthetics and is also a skilled technician who designs and tests a variety of materials and constructions. In the Audire Fluctus project, all these fascinations come together in a unique work – a seven-metre high pylon filled with a special liquid called Spectraflux is an aesthetic representation of the influence of electromagnetic waves as a visual sensation. Normally unseen waves, which are an integral part of today’s information system, materialize into a surprising pattern. A tall column of liquid that is constantly pumping and fluffing up plays with a whole array of colours and resembles a rigid animal that is constantly adapting to its surroundings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The combination of the cultural platform Signal Festival, which brings a unique artistic experience in the public space of Prague at night, and the unique Czech company Prusa Research, which has succeeded in its field and has become a benchmark in the world of DIY creation and production of 3D printers. These seemingly disconnected institutions brought the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":19,"featured_media":10420,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[702],"tags":[1986],"class_list":["post-10888","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","tag-signal_2024"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"