At Manifesta 5 you showed your DVD installation Projection 1.2. in which you combine all kinds of old Czech motion pictures, both historical news-items and home video’s of the Stalinist period of the 1950s and 1970s. You stated in the catalogue: ‘It’s kind of like when an archaeologist more or less accidentally uncovers a layer of earth and finds traces of the past’, and ‘each of the images is part of our past and memory, even if it isn’t a historical fact’. Can you further explain this?
‘At the end of my studies, I discovered by chance our family’s 8 mm film reels from 1965. I realised that there exists a kind of undiscovered parallel history in motion pictures that portrays the past in fragments and from many different angles. I had the feeling that my distance and knowledge of the past somehow prevented me from viewing it in an unbiased manner. I wanted to some extent penetrate events that had taken place before I entered the world. I deliberately used an analogy to archeology because descriptions and explanations of its methods help me grasp how to view historical images. That is to say, I don’t look for these films in public archives, that are most certainly full of an inexhaustible amount of material. Instead I use classified ads to seek films individually from various private owners. They are probes into a specific field. Each film has its own story, such as the reason it was made or why it was saved: I perceive this as part of what they are depicting. The films that I edit from this material are my own interpretation. I try to recognise relations in them that we understand and that evoke a possible feeling of belonging to the past in us and, above all, help us grasp relations in the present.’
What do you mean by ‘even if it isn't a historical fact’?
‘Each of the found films is, in the ensuing interpretation, contaminated by our experiences, our knowledge of the depicted. Old films appear to be faithfully recorded, indubitable sources that portray events as they happened. But the contrary is true. These films depict a combination of motivations and reasons why they were made, how they were to have appeared and what impression they were to have given in their day. The patina, black and white colour, scratches and various imperfections, etc. play a role in how we perceive them. The resulting picture is thus different, each time.’
How did you select the different fragments of Projection 1.2.?
‘In this project, over the course of half a year, I put together from responses to my ads and from various acquaintances roughly 14 hours of various films in various formats – from family films to weekly newsreels to feature films. I took excerpts from them and rearranged the fragments, respecting only their era and added period music that I was looking for along with the films. Thirteen short films were created from this, each localised in a certain era.
The oldest was from the 1930s and the most recent was from the 1980s.’
The connection between the different fragments seems rather arbitrary?
‘I view the individual fragments joined together as a probe. I definitely did not try to use connections that would be immediately clear since then it would be part of a certain shared perception of a certain period. I wanted the possibility of various interpretations based on certain ambiguities – an open field for multiple interpretations. The projection of the past as I’m presenting it is, owing to means of searching for materials, my projection of the past. But I hope that the means that I’ve chosen opens the possibility for each viewer to participate and watch through their own projection.’
Your work seems to confirm the Western cliché story of the Eastern European nostalgic soul.
What is for you the necessity of this art of historical reflection?
‘A similar cliché exists in the Czech Republic about the Russians. I think it’s a question of approach. Then again, in my view Europe suffers from a kind of nostalgia for the construction of utopia, a more just society, an imposing avant-garde project. In viewing a gigantic prefabricated block of buildings and the remnants of the social structure in Eastern Europe, tears appear in the eyes of every left-wing intellectual as he recalls the tattered dreams. Reconstruction of the past is not the same as nostalgia for me. Reflection of the past is for me a basic prerequisite for understanding the future. Unfortunately, in my country the past is, I think, really a subject of nostalgia and not of reflection. I realise that if a viewer confronts my work with a nostalgic approach, he won’t see anything special, but he might become emotional.’
