Extensions
Galerie TIC, Brno, Czech Republic
7. 6. – 27. 7. 2017
Daniela&Linda Dostálková
Curated by Marika Kupková
Video Extensions (6:30 minutes) is based on essay by Michel Foucault: Nietsche, Genealogy, History “Genealogy is gray, meticulous, and patiently documentary. It operates on a field of entangled and confused parchments, on documents that have been scratched over and recopied many times [...] the world of speech and desires has known invasions, struggles, plundering, disguises, ploys. From these, elements, however, genealogy retrieves an indispensable restraint: it must record the singularity of events outside of any monotonous finality; it must seek them in the most unpromising places, in what we tend to feel is without history—in sentiments, love, conscience, instincts; it must be sensitive to their recurrence, not in order to trace the gradual curve of their evolution, but to isolate the different scenes where they engaged in different roles. Finally, genealogy must define even those instances where they are absent, the moment when they remain unrealized.”
The exhibition entitled Extensions is a metaphorical portal leading the viewer not only onto the stage, but also into the staged backstage. The display in the “front stage,” by definition, creates a manipulative environment; the behavior in the “backstage” is closer to the real personality. It is here that one can convey a message escaping the impression given by the stage.
In the case of Extensions, the viewer can freely chose which situation becomes the extension of one of the two proffered acts, without being given the primary characteristics of either polarity. Daniela and Linda Dostálková work with the awareness that the exhibition as a whole (created specifically for the space in Galerie TIC) tests the stability of processes within the staging of two parallel situations—front stage and backstage—through which it leads the viewer to a consensus or the extended meaning of the preferred situation.
The song Šaškové počmárání, recorded by Václav Girsa, courtesy of Michal Horáček.
Video Extensions filmed in Wallachian Open Air Museum
Voiceover: Jessica Serran
Cinematographer: Patrik Hoznauer
Postproduction: Jan Adamus & Norbert Gáfrik
We thank Filip Cenek, Leila Guellaoui & Václav Kostohryz, Jan Lichý, David Možný.