Voices

When I walk through squares, take an underground or try to call somebody, I systematically and sententiously without much passion hear different reports (notification). Reports (notification) which tell me common cliché for example that a siren’s test was done, that the person I was calling was not available or please finish getting in and out the doors are closing. These notifications don’t become important for me during an ordinary day. But sometimes a particular voice or specific sentence catch my interest then I keep that voice in my mind and try to imagine it visually. The topic of my bachelor’s work at FAMU refers to those notifications. Not only to banal everyday notifications but especially to those people who narrated those reports. A main message that is included in my work lies in a possibility of viewer’s confrontation. It is a confrontation of what we hear versus what we see. I conceived the exhibition as a set of interactive audiovisual installation. The photographic bases of my installation are classical portraits. The photographed characters are real people, who narrated those speeches in public places, sometimes across the country. Although they may seem mechanical and inhuman, behind the equipment and inanimate system we can just find those people. I am not particularly interested in discovering the speaker. I am also not interested in naming them or mentioning their civil individual’s identification. In my installation I focus on naming the conflict between humans and machines. Many people think that the notifications are produced by computer. For example the names of bus stops or train stops are not announced by the driver, but by the loud-speaker that is connected to an electronic system. A consideration that voices are not alive is my first point. Those topics are offered: Machines are coming to our lives. Despite the fact that machine has accompanied us since the industrial revolution, I see this topic as a totally new. New in the way that we are managed by machines. Nowadays machine controls many things and we are more and more depending on them. In my installation I raise one promising point: There are still many activities where human being is needed. Probably more obvious is plain reality and diversity of ideas. I play this game with viewer by holding the lights back. The viewer firstly imagines someone’s portrait before he is finally led to see it and confront the real form with his imagination. This is the confrontation of what we hear and what we see. The formulations above are far from using all possible interpretations. We can more speculate about concepts such as subliminal perception, voices effects on our subconscious and so on. One of those I photographed who has been working in the field for decades, said to me during photography that he wittingly inserted energy into his reporting. He always prepares for the sound recording and also systematically tries to influence his voice. By this way he brings people positive vibrations. There is one question we have to consider and that is whether reports can be misused; from their audible form (such as built-in advertising slogans) to silent subliminal abuse. How much can reports affect our daily life? The area of manipulation is wide especially at the present consumer consumption time. I think it’s only a matter of time when these harmless messages are purchased, changed and become even stronger influencer of our lives.












exhibition Bachelor Graduates, GAMU Gallery, Prague 2009
FAMU bachelor serie, interactive instalation
photography, voice, 2009