The Center for Metamedia holds a variety of projects each year, such as workshops, symposia, seminars, festivals, concerts, meetings, etc. These are often -- and ideally -- organized in collaboration with other organizations.
Below are details about 1999 projects still underway - Pantograph and the "Fairy-Tale" Symposium. For a look at projects from 1992-1999, go to the Archive page.
Pantograph web site - http://www.ecn.cz/osf/scca/pgraph
Pantograph is an experimental type of workshop - symposium initiated by two non-govermental organisations - the Center for Metamedia-Plasy and the Center for Contemporary Art (former Soros Center for Contemporary Arts- Prague) - to foster and amplify constructive discussion and the initiation of interregional projects addressing the folds between culture, society, and politics within Europe's former "eastern bloc".
Following the workshop held at the Center for Metamedia (7-12 June), the 12 participants (artists, curators, cultural activists) representing independent cultural organizations are currently preparing proposals for projects, primarily through the discussion group established via e-mail [pantograph-l@ecn.cz]. These "spin-off" projects should be concrete and focused tools for change of existing conditions, even if only on a local or regional level. A selection of these projects will receive a modest amount of start-up money to ensure their realization and function.
Pantograph Workshop Participants
Boris Bakal
Raymond Cindric
Richard Pierre Davies - Mongrel
Sue Mark
Herwig Turk & Rike Frank - Vergessen
Marion von Osten & Peter Spillman & Rachel Mader - Money Nations
Lexa Walsh & Dimitri Carrie - CESTA
Ventislav Zankov - 10 Years Later
Pantograph Organizers
Milos Vojtechovsky & Jo Williams, CMM
Jennifer de Felice, CCA
If you are interested in participating in Pantograph, contact us at the CMM or the organizers at the CCA.
Pantograph is funded by grants from Soros Centers for Art Regional Projects (SCARP), European Cultural Foundation, Pro Helvetia Ost West, the Hermit Fund, Center for Contemporary Arts-Prague and other foundations with interest in stimulating the exchange of ideas.
International Intermedial Symposium
September 1999
"Fairy-Tale" web site - http://www.fairy-tales.org
organized jointly with the Center for Metamedia-Plasy
prepared with the support of the Czech Ministry of Culture, Trust for Mutual Understanding, Pro Helvetia Ost-West, Open Society Fund
Participants | Introductory Essay | Doslov
"Fairy-Tale" is an international symposium of visual artists addressing forms of narrative both conditioned by and distinct from contemporary communications technologies.
The symposium will be held at the Center for Metamedia/Hermit Foundation, an international, interdisciplinary cultural center located in Plasy, Czech Republic. The Centers programs provide artists and scholars of all disciplines with a setting at the Plasy Monastery for experimentation, the creation of new work, research, meetings, as well as opportunities for open dialogue and new forms of collaboration. The Center enjoys the support of the Institute for Historic Monuments-Plzen, the Czech Ministry of Culture, the town of Plasy, Pro Helvetia Foundation, Prins Bernhard Fund, and The Soros Foundations, ResArtis - Kaleidoscope Program of the European Union, and with the cooperation of Gulliver Connects of the European Cultural Foundation.
An international selection of artists, each combining various media through a multidisciplinary practice, will meet at the CMM, during the month of September, to examine and explore their relation to (and understanding of) contemporary narrative structures in the visual arts. Conjoining one of the oldest forms of narrative - the fairy tale - with the current and historical contexts of western Bohemia, the symposium will investigate the idea of the real as we assimilate it through various sources of information, addressing the narratives that construct a reality and simultaneously mediate its apprehension.
During their residency at the CMM, the artists will develop works addressing this theme within a collaborative environment encouraging the exchange of ideas across cultural and disciplinary boundaries. Informal exchange among the artists will be fostered by the setting at the CMM where the artists and organizers share their living and work spaces. More formal occasion for exchange will be provided during public forums organized throughout the month, such as round-table discussions and studio visits. The works will provide the material basis on which these forums will refer and elaborate. In addition, a web site will be created prior to the residencies to initiate a dialogue between the artists participating in the symposium. This web site will provide both a message board facilitating the exchange of ideas between the artists prior to their residency at the CMM, as well as an archive of texts, images, and other material serving to document both the development of the symposium as well as the event itself. A catalogue will be produced documenting the development of the artists projects at the Center and will incorporate critical and theoretical texts elaborating on the concept of the fairy tale.
The website provides a vehicle for a series of conversations between participating artists, curators, critics and others through its online message board and virtual reading room. This ongoing forum addresses contemporary forms of narrative with regard to the cultural, historical, theoretical and technological contexts through which they signify. The virtual reading room is a searchable archive for texts and images referenced by postings to the message board. Participants receive updates of postings to the server's message board via e-mail. In addition to facilitating a series of dialogues between the participants prior to their residency at the CMM, the site also provides the opportunity to broadcast via the internet performances and panel discussions held at the CMM during the residency.
Finally, a catalogue will be produced from a combination of postings made to message board material deposited in the archive, and documentation of symposium's activities.
Symposium Participants
Mercedes Bergliaffa (Argentina)
Monika Brandmeier (Germany)
Barbara Broughel (USA)
Charlie Citron (Holland/USA)
Alison Cornyn (USA)
Michael Crockford (USA)
Abdelali Dahrouch (USA)
Dan Devine (USA)
Redas Dirzis (Lithuania)
Michel Gerard (USA/France)
Medime Sovan Kumar (India)
Melissa Laing (New Zealand)
Yuri Lederman (Russia)
Gail Pickering (UK)
Erwin Redl (USA/Austria)
Jacques Roch (USA/France)
Tony Roch (UK)
Marcos Rosales (USA)
Mark Shepard (USA)
Janos Sugar (Hungary)
Stephanie Syjuco (USA)
Mare Tralla (Estonia)
Alex Villar (Brazil/USA)
Toshihiro Yashiro (Japan)
Martin Zet (Czech Republic)
Introduction
By Denise Carvalho
"Fairy-Tale" was an international symposium/exhibition, in which 25 artists investigated through the use of combined media different forms of narrative structures and narrative processes in relation to the fairy-tale. It took place from September 1 to 30, at the Center for Metamedia, in Plasy, Czech Republic. The Center is housed in a 17th Century monastery. "Fairy-tale" was quoted, signifying a multiplicity of meanings According to Friedmar Apel, the central theme of the fairy tale has always concerned the struggle of the imagination between the spiritual side of humanity and its exploitation by the development of inhumane technology. The purpose of the symposium "Fairy-tale" was to investigate the role of this particular type of narrative in relation to the major social, political and ideological changes that have occurred since World War II. As Jack Zipes asks: "Is there anything of substance in the fairy-tale experimentation that sets a foundation for essential cultural transformation?"
The space It was hard to match the stature of the Center’s architectural space, in which history and styles are blended together. Many of the installations were developed and presented in the granary, a Baroque building extended from a gothic chapel, and other installations and performances shared space at the altan, prelature, convent, or the outdoors. The monumental rooms were difficult challenges to overcome. They had to be transformed, devoured by the work. Utilizing them was the ultimate goal. Making them into intimate spaces, almost impossible. Site-specific there, really meant site-specific.
The artists
Coming from different countries didn’t mean much at the Center. The artists were from different countries, even continents. Some knew each other, others didn’t, some spoke the others’ languages, others didn’t. These artists differed even more in their artistic languages. Diversion and dispersion were expected as an experience of our common diversion and dispersion of today’s art world. These emerging and re-emerging artists, young and not so young, were defied not by time, but by space, on the verge of change. Artists such as Monika Brandmeier whose drawings, sculptures, video, installations and photography investigates diverse territorial relationships, from physics to poetics of the object, utilized form as a point of departure to abstraction. Two rows of green chairs were displayed in opposition to each other, separated only by an upsidedown glass with a bit of water, and a bit of physics, placed on top of a Styrofoam sheet, and some other sheets displayed protecting the area where the glass was. On a far wall hung three photographs of drawings following a somewhat abstract, somewhat linear structure, according to Brandmeier's language. In the middle area between the chairs and the photos a video was displayed on the floor. Another photo placed on top of one of the chairs, giving the impression that it had been forgotten there not intendently placed. All beautifully structured in the performance hall in the prelature building. Stephanie Syjuco and Gail Pickering collaborative installation comments on the displacement of technology in Plasy. Using mal-functioning technological devices they created an orchestra in which turntables, monitors, loudspeakers, and other devices do something else than what they were supposed to do. Their social-political comment was applied to the physical reality of the objects. Tony Roch presented a video installation, in which he deconstructs three important spaces of the film noir: the staircase, the office, and the bar. This was done using the Center’s Baroque rooms and staircase. The comment here was on strategic structures of manipulation of the film noir, and the irrelevance of human emotion. Jacques Roch on the other hand explored the psycho-erotic aspect of the fairy-tale. His animation, based on his drawings, portrays an adolescent girl’s metamorphosis into a unicorn. The girl in her sexual awakening struggles against ambivalent codes of chastity and potency implied in the unicorn. Charlie Citron presented an installation In The Order of Things, inspired by a mistaken conversation about Franz Kafka’s mother and her kitchen, hangs white objects covered with latex as a Brontosaurus toy or a spoon, a cup or a gun. This field of dissociated memory is captured through the eyes of child, mixing fiction with the mundane, the cartoon with the perverse, historical and idiosyncratic. Or Citron’s photographs and video of the travels of Joe, a GI Joe doll as a cowboy travelling around the world Sometimes a hero, sometimes a bandit, Joe’s experiences often portrays social and cultural clashes. Alison Cornyn counted grains of sand representing each living person in the world, in her installation/performance Altan Sand Counting Laboratory. As visitors stepped onto the sandy floors of the altan room, they were being counted as sand grains in front of a magnifying glass, bottled into glass bottles, labeled, and registered, while two clocks were ticking. One clock with a long pendulum counted the seconds, another with its circular shape was projected on the wall counting, according to statistics, each birth and death in the world . Alex Villar also used the altan space for his video, in which he struggles, even injures himself to get through a small hole between the window’s bars. This is a continuation of other works in which he defies the authoritarian codes implied in architectural spaces, with his somewhat passive-somewhat active semi-naked body, Another interesting work was Mark Shepard’s video depicting passers by in the corridor of the prelature building, following a fast-forward pace of the silent movies. Shepard’s work also included a video on Berlin’s changing landscape, and a project on mushrooms (one of the Czech Republic’s natural resources), intercepting it to one of his other art projects about TV documentaries on natural life, commenting on strategies of control used in media-culture, as well as a collaborative installation piece with Martin Zet. In this installation, three monitors showed at once the most expensive fifteen minutes of the three major channels in Czech Republic, one of them a satellite news program from British TV. Martin Zet also presented another video in which he deconstructs Hitchcock’s Vertigo from image to sound arriving at an empty screen. Zet did also a collaboration with Redas Dirzys in his performance, in which the three men went down a rope on one of Plasy's bridges to the river under it, walking up the river inside the water, climbing with a help of a rope a small waterfall, climbed up a rope on another bridge, finally arriving at their destination. This performance was supposed to have only two men (Dirzys and Zet), but as a surprise element often happens in a performance, Yuri Leiderman joined them while they were still walking up the river.Michel Gerard presented an installation with suspended furniture, a bed, chairs, desk and a lamp, and a silent WW 2 documentary projected onto a chair, showing a few repetitive loops, as the aircraft bombing of a building and the replica of the Statue of Liberty in Paris. Also part of the same installation, but in a separate room in the granary, which dark, damp and decayed ceiling and walls resemble a tomb, Gerard showed a color cartoon by Grimault from the same period. Gerard’s work comments on the necessary transmutation of mentalities at the end of the century. Another work commenting on wars was the installation of Abdelali Dahrouch named "It depends on what the meaning of the word ‘IS’ is …" It explored various meanings implied to "is," from semantics to the distortions of propaganda and advertising. Dahrouch chaotically demarcated the room with white wire, with book pages all over the floor, and two video projections: one with subsequent loops of the Gulf War news documentation, and Alice in the Looking Glass projected on the pages of a book, while a narrator’s voice told the tale in a stuttering way. Barbara Broughel’s piece, called The Stitchripper, was a voodoo doll, a hybrid from Haitian, Czech, and West African Black Madonnas, made of a mixture of factory products used and produced by worshippers. Erwin Redl’s light installation Serpent was a large number of tiny electronic lights controlled by a set of experiential rules driven by computation. In a dark room of the granary, the Serpent would blink in a sequencial and continuous way from left to right, when coming to its end it would start again. Mare Tralla’s computer installation included a series of eight tales of her growing up in Estonia, and photos of desired objects and fruits, such as oranges and bananas, overtly decorated with fake flowers. Toshihiro Yashiro photos investigated light frequency and movement. He showed a vegetable gradually rotating, from static to high-speed rotation, as a metaphor for a process in which energy becomes form. Redas Dirzys’s installation included large self-portrait print-outs, black ink on the floor and a series of footprints leading to a desk with chair. Over the desk, a local newspaper with the artist’s photo and his obituary. Dirzys work comments on the media’s influence in the individual’s displacement of identity. Yuri Leiderman also presented a performance/choreography based on Trojan soldiers’ deaths. First he read each of the soldiers’ names and describes in Russian the manner in which they were killed. Then he performed a dance following strategic positions of the soldiers sketched with chalk on the floor of the convent, with Schubert’s music as background. In this performance, Leiderman mixes the absurd and the tragic of war. On the other hand, Michael Crockford turned semi-human semi-animal forms into gigantic puppet heads, which bodies were the local kids, forming a procession around Plasy. Janos Sugar’s conceptual installation was made of two separate pieces, which interplayed in a distance: a glass pyramid made of several pieces, with the pictures of Catholic saints attached to the glass parts, and not too far, an engine cemented in a pot of clay. Dan Devine commented on the relationship between private and public displaying a composition of rubbings from machines and objects collected on site. Melissa Laing’s installation was a peek on Raymond Chandler’s descriptive novels, turning the ordinary into the mysterious and intimate. With the title "From there I glanced back…" the artist displayed dim lights through a couple of lampshades of raffia and wire, a record player with her own voice narrating Chandler’s stories, and a couple of chairs. The simplicity of the urban environment of Plasy seemed connected to the urban environment of the 40s built by Chandler’s novels. Finally, Medime Sovan Kumar’s installation piece included a video with humorous stereotypes of himself sitting on a toilet in the gardens of the monastery. The work also included photographs of hanging clothes in the garden that were sketched onto the pictures to become an animal or a face, changing the orginal image of the photo into something else. Another part of the installation included several pairs of paper slippers wore by visitors. In his work, Sovan Kumar reverts clichés demonstrating his own detachment from some Western ideals of what is hip in art.
In our experimentation, we investigated non-conventional forms of narrative, not only creating non-linear and decentralized structures, but juxtaposing the collective myths of media-culture with the individual tale, connecting the real and the wondrous. Michel Butor states that the images conveyed by the ideal and serious fairy tale are "A world inverted, an exemplary world, fairyland is a criticism of ossified reality. It does not remain side by side with the latter; it reacts upon it; it suggests that we transform it, that we reinstate what is out of place."
That way, Fairy-Tale’s site-specific character resonates the same changeable quality of the space. The parallels between past and present are suspended between the shadows of history and the inevitable.
po-po-hádka - fairy tale symposium
Plasy-září 1999
Plešatý Roi Vaara se jednou ráno probudil, oblékl bílou košili a černý oblek a vypravil se do kuchyně v prelatuře na snídani. Po cestě dostal strašnou chuť na koblihu, ale s nelibostí zjistil, že včera zapomněl v někde hospodě portmonku. Protože však jde o zkušeného a zcestovalého performera, věděl si ihned rady: otočil se vydal směrem do místní komerční banky směnit si pár finských valut za lokální měnu, aby měl na své oblíbené cukroviny. Šel však, jak to někdy performeři dělají, pěkně pomalu, aby si cestu vychutnal a kolemjdoucí z toho také něco měli. Dvěstě třicet metrů mu trvalo přes dvě hodiny a dorazil ke dveřím banky, doprovázen shlukem dětí a místních povalečů chvilku před polední pauzou. Mezitím se však ing. Pavlu Tykačovi a jeho skupině Motoinvest s.r.o. podařilo dokončit několik podařených finančních transakcí a polekaný pokladník - protože pokladna KB byla už stejně prázdná - stačil zamknout všem dveře bankovní pobočky před nosy. Roi Vaara tedy vyndal z kapsy holubí peří, rozdal je dětem a odešel si dát rohlík s čajem.Od toho dne v Plasích už žádná banka není a všichni cizinci, co dostanou chuť na koblihy, si musí jít vyměnit svoje dolary do Plzně. Nemluvě již o nadějích sponzorování projektu Centra pro Metamedia českými bankami.
Na závěr letošní sezóny uspořádalo Centrum pro Metamedia ve spolupráci s brazilsko-newyorsko kritickou kritičkou Denise Carvalho symposium Po-hádka /Fairy Tale. Paní Denise pozvala většinu z 25 účastníků, pár jich přijelo na pozvání CMM, nebo byli právě v Plasech na rezidenčních pobytech. Seskupení bylo pestré a různorodé a jeden každý se vyrovnal po svém s tématem příběhovosti, což byl prvek, který měl za úkol průběh symposia propojit. V dnešních Čechách vyzní pohádkově téměř všechno, takže přiliž práce s vymýšlením umělci neměli. Francouz Michael Gerard z New Yorku postavil svoji instalaci na dávném traumatickém zážitku z války. smyčku videa s dobovým animovaným filmem pro děti zkombinoval s projekcí autentických záběrů útočících bombardérů na levitující nábytek. Alex Villar z Brazílie natočil a promítal na zeď altánu videoperformanci dokumentující jeho průnik, nebo snad ůnik do zamřížovaného, ale vlastné dávno už zazděného okna. Alison Cornyn z New Yorku aranžovala uvnitř téže budovy improvizovanou "demografickou laboratoř", navozující metaforicky paralelu mezi počítáním zrnek písku a aktuálním stavem lidské populace na zeměkouli. Návštévník si mohl za stolem sám zkusit, jakou práci dá oddělovat pískové jednotky na misce a zároveň sledovat promítané číslice, zaznamenávající pomyslnou ubíhající statistiku smrti a narození ve zvuku skutečných tikajících pendlovek a věžních hodin. Mark Shepard zachytil v přerušovaných sekvencích děj v chodbě prelatury a do otvoru za dvířkami od kamen promítl pak z počítače příběh, zrcadlící ve zmenšeném měřítku trhaný pohyb postaviček, a svoji zpomalenou motoriku připomínající průhled do říše Liliput z Gulliverových cest. Abdelali Dahrouch z Maroka, žijící taktéž v New Yorku, interpretoval ve své dramatické instalaci ve sklepech sýpky Alenčin pád do králičí nory a doplnil jej čteným textem a video koláží z filmového zpracování příběhu Lewise Carolla. Tony Roch natočil v interiérech místních pochmurných budov znepokojivý film bez začátku, konce, děje a hrdiny - patrné dekonstrukci a interpretaci žánru film noir a senior Jacques Roch pro změnu umístil do oken sálu plátna s námětem archetypu erotického setkání panny a jednorožce, doplněné animovaném filmem téhož galsky frivolního ražení. Haitská černá voodoo panenka Barbary Breughel (USA) postavená do niky schodiště naproti záhadnému objektu Jánose Sugára - motoru zalitého do sádry- a klasicistní bělostné mramorové soše zakoupené kdysi knížetem Metternichem ve Francii, rozšířila poklidnou oblast evropské mytologie a ikonografie o překvapující nabídku inspirace praxe rituálů černé magie z karibských ostrovů v místních poměrech. Někdy se daly příběhy doplnit a uhádnout jen stěží: Fotografická série záznamů proměny tvarů rotujících předmětů Toshiro Yashira z Tokia obohatila výstavu o čistou estetickou dimenzi. Elektronicky sofistikovaná a hravá instalace světelných pobíhajících hádků Erwina Redla z Rakouska v něčem připomínala „interaktivní" prostor s názvem The Order of Things, inspirovaný omylem v rozhovoru o matce Franze Kafkovi a hlavně její kuchyni, kde Charles Citron zavěsil na gumy všední objekty a divák si je mohl sám rozhoupat. Projekt Dana Devine spočíval v apropriaci všedních předmětů-fetišů, sesbíraných v plaské městské společnosti, převodu jejich povrchu grafickým otiskem na plochu papíru a jejich následné propojení v pásmo, položené na podlaze sýpky. Stephanie Syjuko z Kalifornie a Gail Pickering z Londýna spolupracovali v improvizovaném technicko-opravářském studiu, kde instrumentální skrumáž zahrnující počítače, magnetofony, krátkovlnné vysílačky, gramofony, ventilátory a diaprojektory vyústila ve zvukovou chaotickou samplovanou techno koláž, po uklizení místnosti znějící z prázdného, zeleně okobercovaného prostoru. S virtuálním televizním obrazem vrstvení sledu večerních zpráv pracoval ve spolupráci s Markem Shepardem Martin Zet a Medime Sovan Kumar z Indie si ve svých video performancích-environmentech pohrál s prolínáním tradičních indických motivů, MTV videoklipu a vlastních deníkových záznamů z pobytu v Plasech. V „kavárenské" instalaci Melissy Laing z Nového Zélandu bylo možno si pustit gramofonové záznamy čtení fragmentů textu z Chandlerových detektivek a filmstory o symptomech duševní nemoci MPP upletl z černé tkaniny Marcos Rosales, stylizující se do identity monster hororových B filmů. Michael Crockford využil svoji zkušenost ze spolupráce s Peterem Schumanem a skupinou Bread and Puppets a s dětmi z místní školy připravil pro občany průvod městem s obřími loutkami. Monika Brandmaier z Německa upravila prostor slavnostního sálu prelatury v záminku pro minimálně hermetický děj na videu zaznamenávajícím pohyb těsnění ve sklenici vody. Východoevropskou scénu zastupoval na symposiu Redas Dirzys z Litvy kompozicí dřevorytových autoportrétů, intervencí o své vlastní smrti v inzertní příloze plzeňských novin a plaveckým tažením lana chladnou řekou Střelou. Námětem CD romu Mary Tralla z Estonska byla projekce jejích dětských zážitků z dob socialistické ekonomiky nedostatku v konfrontaci s dnešní kapitalistickou ekonomikou přebytku a konzumu. Bývalý člen legendární ruské skupiny Medicinská Hermeneutika Jurij Lederman realizoval pod výzdobou ze školních map a za zvuku Schumannovy hudby v bývalém letním refektáři, přestavěném kancléřem na sýpku, bizarní taneční performanci komponovanou na motivy způsobu smrti řeckých reků z Homérovy Iliady. Ta byla, podle jeho slov, jedním z prvních literárních záznamů neutuchajících konfliktů mezi Evropou a Asií. Paradoxně se mu podařilo v této ironické persifláži na klasické dějiny a umění propojit mytologii s realitou až hrozivě, což neutralizoval vypitou láhví tuzemského rumu. Oproti původní představě kurátorů fixované na zkoumání vztahu fikce a reality v dnešn’m umění se kaleidoskop jednotlivých projektů skládal spíš z prolínání fragmentů osobních př’běhů a poselství s různou měrou srozumitelnosti. Nesnadný úkol porozumění i mezi samými umělci z tolika kulturn’ch okruhů se projevil i během diskusí kolem kulatého stolu i v konfrontaci s příběhem Avdeje Ter Ogajana, jemuž se člověku ani uvěřit nechce. Celkový obraz symposia bude možné zachytit až z textů katalogu, který by měl být vydán do konce roku.
Symposium Fairy-Tale uzavřelo letošní letní program rezidenčního projektu Centra pro Metamedia, jehož se zúčastnilo kolem 80ti výtvarných umělců, literátů, performerů, divadelních a hudebních souborů, kteří využili možnosti pro práci a pobyt v budovách bývalého kláštera. Symposium bylo významnou měrou podpořeno grantem od Trust for Mutual Understanding a celý projekt byl financován s podporou Pro Helvetia Ost West, Ministerstvem kultury České republiky, UNESCO bursaries a spoluprací s mezinárodní organizací RES ARTIS, sdružující pobytová střediska pro umělce v Evropě. Pokračující aktivit Centra v rámci iniciovaného mezinárodního projektu Pantograf budou zaměřeny hlavně na lepší koordinaci a komunikaci nevládních kulturně sociálních organizací (NGO) v kontextu střední a východní Evropy a na podporu vzniku dalších center a projektů podobného charakteru. Tato průběžná aktivita, spočívající v dlouhodobém plánu pořádání dílen a diskusních setkání, realizovaná společné s Centrem současného umění v Praze za podpory Open Society Fund a European Cultural Foundation, pokračuje bez ohledu na možnost využívat v budoucnosti prostory památkového objektu kláštera Plasy, kde bývalá Nadace Hermit a Společnost přátel umění od roku 1992 pracuje. CD rom, který dokumentuje nejen dějiny plaského kláštera, ale všechny projekty a akce pořádané zde od roku 1981 a odkazy na zahraniční akce je ve výrobním procesu.
Kdysi, začátkem léta, si vyjel konceptuální umělec Ivan Kafka na motýly. Na pasece uviděl vzácnou můrku, rozběhl se s napřaženou síťkou za ní, ale po chvíli zabloudil v křivoklátských hvozdech. Dlouhé hodiny bloudil hustým stromovím až vyčerpán došel na mýtinu. Uprostřed stála v poledn’m slunci voňavá kupa sena a kolem poletovalo hejno krásných modrásků. Ivan Kafka sejmul hučku, pochytal překvapivě krotké motýly, dal jim přičichnout chloroformu a poděkoval Pánubohu za záchranu. Na znamení díků pak navšt’vil klášter Plasy, sjednal zde hlouček vesničanů a v rondelu prvního patra uhladil během devíti dní a devíti nocí devět metráků sena do tvaru bájné hory Říp. Senná vůně a rýma se rozprostřela po celém chráněném památkovém objektu a pan ředitel Drhovský se během své nenadálé inspekce tak rozkýchal, až slzel. Rozzlobil se proto velmi na současné a hlavně konceptuální umělce a kdyby ho byl býval Ivan Kafka nakonec nějak neuchlácholil, mohlo to prý tenkrát skončit s konceptualisty v Čechách dost špatné.
zaznamenal: Miloš Vojtéchovský