Water exists in three states, as well as solid, liquid and gas. This trinity of water seems to take on a divine essence. 80 % of a human is made of water and, to our current knowledge, we should drink at least three liters of water a day. We can stay breathless under water for about three minutes. Many respiratory, skin, heart, gynaecological and movement diseases are treated in spas or by the sea. When a person is stressed, it helps to drink fluids, or take a shower or bath. Today, special water massages and watsu therapies are also sought after, which evoke a transcendental experience. Women give birth in water more frequently, sometimes in the presence of dolphins. Although, there is less drinking water, melting glaciers are raising ocean levels due to the rising heat. The water temperatures are rising, and rising so quickly that aquatic habitats and coral reefs cannot adapt to it and die. Believers visit places of pilgrimage where there are miraculous healing waters. The main problem for pilgrims is obtaining adequate water supplies, without water they will not survive more than 72 hours without harm to health. We are currently witnessing – allegedly – the greatest drought in the last 500 years. Water appears in all mythologies, dreams and interpretations as an element symbolizing life, feelings and a certain kind of infinity. When probes are sent into space, they search for water on the planets; water is the hope that life might arise there, or the possibility that life was there.
Jan Matýsek's exhibition Ocean Fitness takes into account all these connotations concerning water and creates a liquid visual intoxication, during which we can become a mermaid and experience transhumanistic insight. The main motif is the intoxicating water, which causes hallucinations. As this intoxicating water becomes the environment of all of us, we are all intoxicated and hallucinate, turning into amphibians: half terrestrial and aquatic creatures, half real and virtual. The immersive installation is dominated by videos and objects that draw the viewer below the surface of the water fatamorgana. The space resembles a spa, the viewers find themselves in an intimate cave like space, they find here colorful objects of indeterminate biomorphic shapes and the voice of a hypnotist accompanies them into the world of intoxicating hypnosis. It feels like being in a bath, this bath is strongly suggestive, in some places there is also a menacing squid, as if we were in a prehistoric cave from the future.
Our body changes and is no longer just ours, it becomes part of the environment and it is more and more fluid, culminating in the erotic motif of a hallucinatory visual orgasm. The theme for the exhibition for Jan Matýsek was The Wet Dream of Leviathan, which fulfills the author's previous research into hydrofeminism and transhumanism. In his work, the author points out environmental problems that cannot be ignored, and if everyone is aware of the significance and consequences of their actions, they can prevent an increase in the intoxication of our planet and its surroundings in the universe. What is happening on our Earth has consequences beyond its atmosphere.
