If we wanted to describe the common working space of Veronika Vlková and Jan Šrámek, we might suggest seeing it as broadening the field of animation. The artists approach it from separate angles, thought the two have much in common, including having graduated from the Faculty of Visual Arts of the Technical University in Brno (he in 2009, and she a year later). Over the course of the last few years Vlková’s work has matured, arriving at a complex working methodology where everything unfolds from narrative, offering a rich array of forms: paintings, mostly watercolor; as well as objects, installations and videos. We may assign attributes such as delicacy, lyricism and fantasy to her work. Šrámek’s work, on the other hand, connects several leitmotifs - above all, apartment blocks with flora and (mostly winged) fauna presented with an almost autistic concern for detail. His unmistakable working style relies on a highly developed sense of the possibilities of vector graphics, which also allows him a place in the Czech and international VJ scene.
In the past, Vlková and Šrámek have tried many different forms of collaboration, with the idea of broadening their creative potential. For example, collaborations with, Radoslav Zrubec and Vojtěch Vaněk, among others, focused their interest on objects and installations. In the past year, they have arrived at the point where their work has become increasingly intertwined, culminating in a VJ set by the group Teve, also first presented at Školská 28. Šramek has made use of his previous collaboration with Vojtěch Daněk in the animation, combining elements of vector graphics and bitmap backgrounds. The basis for the play of deconstructive animation was provided by Vlková’s watercolors, which often bear motifs of elemental natural material such as water, stone (crystal), or fire.
From remixes of found visual „samples“ Vlkova and Šrámek have proceeded to real collaborative animation work, resulting in the short film Bubi which received first prize in the category of „best non-narrative/experimental film“ at the Anifest Festival this year. Visitors to the exhibition will be able to view this animation in a different context than the jury and spectators at Anifest.
The gallery situation is different in many crucial aspects, most essentially, the visitor experiences a different context and configuration. For example, the viewer is free to move in space before the projected image. Their own trajectory of movement becomes an animation principle in itself. Vlková and Šrámek present this work in total awareness of that fact. The leitmotif of the exhibition is the end of civilization, the world after the apocalypse. Relics and ruins, fragments of a picture of a coherent world are present at the entrance, prefiguring in some way the film Bubi. The fictional world of animation does not just appear „on screen“ but opens up beyond the gallery door, and everyone who enters becomes part of it.
Jan Zálešák
