Sands of the microworld 2.0 is a long-term exhibition project of a loosely associated group of Czech and Slovak authors – Petr Jambor, Jakub Němec, Jakub Roček and Michal Žilinský, who are all related by their studies at the Drawing and Graphics Studio Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology under the guidance of Svätopluk Mikyta. The collective is currently working with the medium of scenic installation and 3D animation.The project is a loose continuation of the previous exhibition Sands of the microworld, which took place last year (June – September 2021) in the Jozef Kollár Gallery in Banská Štiavnica (Slovakia). Just like its predecessor, the exhibition Sands of the microworld 2.0 works with a post apocalyptic narrative. It is based on a loose collaboration of artists, who work across a wide spectrum of media – from object to installation and video, 3D animation and sound. The title is based on the visions/idea of some kind of new world order that has emerged in the wake of the current global crisis. It is this catastrophe that became a new beginning of microworlds and microstories in the story of Sands of the microworld starting off their own independent existence. However, the plot eventually takes us beyond the horizon of the history of the new order with a reflection on what came after the failure of the deglobalized form of coexistence.
The artists do not criticize the subsequent status quo and what led to it at length; rather they surrender to it with the pathos of one of the many ideas about the local and global end of the world. The exhibition Sands of microworld 2.0 works with the now rather “overcooked” topic of global environmental crisis as a phenomenon that has returned to the art scene after 2000 in a new context of scientifically oriented multi-disciplinary paradigm of the Anthropocene. It presents a site-specific installation that refers to the crisis situation. It resembles an emergency committee or a bunker, a place in charge of the last coordinated human activity. The audience enters the intervention in Galerie TIC in a state of timelessness, the time “after” or “post” when all the preceding tension and threat has disappeared. What is left are only ruins, fragments, and memories... The intricate environment is crowned by a large format video – a narrative 3D animation with a distinct musical component by the invited artist Tomáš Moravanský. The animation is a “postmodern” collage full of references to pop culture and techno-optimism. It satirizes the acquired and eventually destroyed human cultural property, which is paradoxically portrayed in a dematerialized form in a world of virtual objects and simulations that are multiplying and overlapping into infinity.
Petr Jambor (1988, CZ) is a graduate of the Drawing and Graphics Studio at the FFA BUT (2018). In his free work, he mainly works with objects and installations. He is the winner of the Best Book Design from All Over the World competition, 2017.
Jakub Němec (1990, SK/CZ) is a graduate of the Drawing and Graphics Studio at the FFA BUT (2018). He is a new media artist working mainly with the medium of installation and object.
Michal Žilinský (1992, SK/CZ) is a graduate of the Drawing and Graphics Studio at the FFA BUT (2018). He focuses on digital animation, drawing and installation. He is the winner of a moving images competition – Other Visions (Slovakia), 2018 and 2019.
Jakub Roček (1989, CZ) is a graduate of the Drawing and Graphics Studio at the Faculty of FFA BUT. He works with 3D animation, video, installation art, graphic and object. Besides his artistic practice, he works as pedagogue.
Tomáš Moravanský (1991, SK/CZ) is a postgraduate student at the Department of Art Theory and History at the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology. He works in the field of gallery installation, interventions into public spaces, moving image, sound production, physical theater, and dance.
Marianna Brinzová (*1987, SK) is a graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts, Brno University of Technology. Since 2015, she has produced several exhibitions in Slovakia and the Czech Republic as a freelance curator. Since 2016, she co-organizes the festival DOM in Bratislava.
The project was supported by the Fund for the promotion of arts in the form of a scholarship for the artist Michal Žilinský as a part of international mobilities.
