Markéta Othová
Still-life or hell on a plate
How to stop taking photographs
It is a constantly recurrent reaction in the lives of people. People who had been thinking about it too much came up with different explanations. With the absence of one parent comes a change in the attitude towards work that has been done up to now. Only then you realize how much work had been done. And that perhaps it´s enough. Surely it´s enough. They begin to do things in a different way or they do nothing for some time. Or something completely different. Both options are all right. Everything is all right. Someone is not looking. Nobody is looking.
Do not explain anything
Those born under the sign of Pisces show several strange characteristics. Despite their very rich inner life they do not share anything since they fear the reaction of people around them. Some of their thoughts are so terrible and blasphemous that they feel these thoughts had been secretly forced upon them. That is why they often do not know how to answer a question. They often don´t even pay too much attention to questions. They know they won´t be able to answer them truthfully. They know that truth is so improbable that pulling out even a tiny bit is not worth it. Furthermore, they do not even like explaining things. If you don´t understand, then don´t ask. Then they turn a question into a joke, they tend to fog or question the topic or they start talking about something that has just crossed their mind. They don´t like trivialisation. Those born under the sign of Pisces will never tell you what it´s really like in reality. Never. In your own interest.
I take pride in this
„I take pride in this“ is an agreed-on expression. It is not a statement. It has nothing in common with what was said or will be said. She uses only accidental but suitable connections to insert a password. The password means: forget, ignore it.
The film does not include any other agreed-on expression.
Disintegration
There are visible contexts and those we only know about. Nobody else sees them. That is why we create things seemingly similar despite the fact that they mean the opposite and are not related to each other. However, we have to calm the viewer at least by aesthetical harmony. By contexts and connections. Hobbling monsters of confusions stamped into the ground. Although sometimes the monsters climb out. And then we slowly leave the contexts to disintegrate. In extreme situations all that remains is the image and the abyss behind it into which disintegrating contexts fall. Cheerfully. Without emotions.
I do not want them to see me like this. It´s not me. How should I behave. Nonsense. A wild moment. It´s a long time ago. Is it a long time ago? It´s such a long time ago. Is it such a long time ago?
Expectations
Leave me alone. Behind every corner. Leave me alone. Behind every corner. I´m coming.
This text includes one agreed-on expression.
Ivan Mečl
- We could read something from this book but I can´t read nicely.00:00:02.808
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- I used to like this book.00:00:09.573
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- It´s by Daniel Charms.00:00:11.806
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- I don´t really know what to say about him.00:00:14.994
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- There lived a red-haired man,00:00:18.137
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- who had no eyes and no ears,00:00:20.152
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- and no hair, so people called him redhead just from habit,00:00:21.972
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- he could not speak since he had no mouth,00:00:25.356
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- he had no nose, no arms nor legs,00:00:26.879
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- no belly, no back,00:00:29.817
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- no spine, no guts,00:00:31.562
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- he had nothing so we do not know who we are talking about.00:00:34.655
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- We´d better stop talking about him.00:00:38.758
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- January 7, 1937.00:00:41.240
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- I used to like this a lot.00:00:43.976
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- One of my first photographs looked like this.00:00:51.533
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- I took it at the school toilet.00:01:01.036
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- And then a short text came out in a newspaper00:01:03.122
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- - I still can´t forget it -00:01:08.073
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- saying that Markéta Othová offers a view of blurred tips of shoes and floor tiles.00:01:11.462
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- I was completely heart-broken and yet, it was a mere description...00:01:18.434
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- Now I laugh, but I was really upset about it for fifteen years.00:01:23.968
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- I said to myself: What idiots, to write such a thing about such a nice photo...00:01:27.689
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- As if it mattered.00:01:33.144
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- I was standing there.00:01:42.733
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- I wanted to find all the places I went to.00:01:51.169
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- I started marking the places in this book.00:01:57.153
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- I was proud how many pieces of architecture I had seen.00:02:02.353
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- And then... oh, I used to pass this place in Paris.00:02:10.472
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- There´s the Brooklyn Bridge.00:02:19.304
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- I also saw this.00:02:26.634
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- Like a Japanese tourist.00:02:32.432
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- They´re normal things. I also saw this one.00:02:37.710
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- I was in Oak Park in Chicago, I saw all these houses there.00:02:39.574
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- What have we got here? Oh, yes, I was inside this church.00:02:45.191
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- Frank Loyd Wright.00:02:50.011
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- I was here. I saw many iconic pieces of architecture more or less by accident,00:02:51.900
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- I didn´t search for them intentionally.00:03:06.203
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- I just happened to be near by, so I went to see the place.00:03:08.411
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- Then I looked for photos of the places on the Internet and00:03:14.895
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- I realized everybody took photos of a building from the same place.00:03:19.057
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- I added to my black-and-white photograph a small photo from the Internet.00:03:24.759
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- I was there, and this is what I found.00:03:28.832
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- Well, it´s not exactly the same.00:03:38.093
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- Everybody takes photos from the same place.00:03:57.425
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- It´s funny.00:04:00.724
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- This is a bit different.00:04:06.661
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- But I was there.00:04:08.651
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- This is Moscow.00:04:13.849
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- The studio of architect Melnikov.00:04:17.283
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- And there´s snow there.00:04:21.112
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- Perhaps in Russia there´s snow all the time.00:04:23.088
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- Wait, I´ll show you something..00:04:28.525
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- This is what our granny drew for us.00:04:29.746
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- I still have the original flip book somewhere.00:04:35.876
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- Here it is.00:04:43.107
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- From my granny... it´s a bit dirty now.00:04:47.952
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- Oh, look, there´s another one.00:04:55.889
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- Two other figures fighting...00:04:57.541
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- So there are two stories. One about a growing cactus...00:05:07.646
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- someone scribbled over it... perhaps my mum...00:05:10.798
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- This photo from the bath was taken in a mirror.00:05:22.268
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- I was sitting there and I just liked the strange haze.00:05:25.100
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- It´s very underexposed that´s why it´s sort of dream-like.00:05:35.231
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- If the exposition was right, the way it is with digital cameras now,00:05:40.895
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- the photo would look so terribly realistic that I couldn´t use it.00:05:47.124
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- I liked the situation and thanks to the wrong exposition the result was so beautiful00:05:55.314
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- that I started working with it.00:06:03.871
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- This can´t happen now with the perfect gadgets.00:06:08.590
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- I never tried to benefit from my unfamiliarity with technology,00:06:13.883
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- I simply like it when it´s blurred, when it´s hardly visible.00:06:23.507
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- When it´s all dark and you just have a faint idea what´s there.00:06:28.252
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- Perhaps because I changed my camera I started taking photos of more concrete things.00:06:35.030
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- I liked the new opportunities it offered.00:06:41.200
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- Strawberries can be red for instance...00:06:45.805
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- I often took photos of feet. Feet standing somewhere in the sea...00:06:51.646
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- It´s natural that the photographer suddenly tilts his camera down00:06:56.981
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- and everybody does it. I want to capture my feet in the sand in NY, on Coney Island,00:07:06.023
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- your sneakers in the sand to say "I was there".00:07:14.783
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- I still like it.00:07:20.682
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- Or in a town where you see your reflection in a shop window..00:07:24.103
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- I used to like all this.00:07:30.428
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- Now I concentrate on cups and grapes and so on...00:07:36.662
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- Those still-life photos were linked with my spending more time at home00:07:43.183
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- and coming across household things more often.00:07:50.338
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- It was just a practically chosen topic.00:07:56.998
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- In the past I also made still-life photos00:08:04.959
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- but for example objects on the table in a café.00:08:09.331
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- You can feel that homely atmosphere.00:08:13.823
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- I like apples in a bowl. But that´s an old old subject.00:08:17.655
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- When you used the word "still-life" and began arranging the things on the table,00:08:26.038
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- so I suddenly really felt like taking a photo.00:08:33.508
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- When I said I didn´t want to take photos any more00:08:40.908
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- that I didn´t enjoy it,00:08:44.568
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- so perhaps only still-life photos...00:08:45.736
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- I enjoy looking at photographs00:08:51.312
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- but there are too many of them00:08:53.555
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- around us.00:08:58.810
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- This is beautiful. I love pictures.00:09:09.567
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- It´s a kind of silly hobby.00:09:18.870
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- Look. Here´s the balcony where Juliet stood.00:09:27.824
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- It´s from Verona.00:09:35.704
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- And there´s another nice thing, it´s over there behind you.00:09:37.800
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- It´s an important thing.00:09:46.162
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- We like it very much.00:09:48.840
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- It´s an invitation, works by Václav Stratil.00:09:51.401
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- "I do nothing and other works".00:09:58.684
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- That´s fantastic.00:10:02.311
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- Several times, maybe because I didn´t know what to do,00:10:07.914
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- I displayed one photo twice, mirrored,00:10:13.041
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- which somehow fascinated me,00:10:22.217
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- and I felt it was the right thing, it was an important moment,00:10:27.566
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- I didn´t want to emphasize the photographs to such an extent any more,00:10:33.020
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- and I used them as decoration.00:10:39.046
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- I created a small composition for a wall00:10:41.779
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- a kind of kaleidoscope,00:10:46.338
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- and I liked it and then came the exhibition in Bonn.00:10:48.031
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- It was a one-man show, and in the middle of the gallery00:10:54.834
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- there was a cube with a video by Peter Atkins.00:10:57.818
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- You walked into the room and looked at00:11:01.725
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- a series of unimpressive photographs00:11:08.046
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- of different formats and materials,00:11:12.921
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- shiny, mat, coloured, black-and-white,00:11:16.956
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- it was meant to be sort of bland,00:11:20.999
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- unimportant scenes.00:11:23.896
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- So you were looking at them and suddenly00:11:27.487
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- in the middle of the gallery behind the box00:11:31.770
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- this is what happened... at a smaller photograph00:11:39.526
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- you continued forward and you saw everything behind you,00:11:43.687
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- and I really liked this.00:11:48.574
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- You walked forward but the images00:11:50.605
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- took you back to what you had already experienced00:11:53.486
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- but they were reversed.00:11:57.613
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- There was a kind of whirl00:11:59.979
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- and the possibility to enlarge a negative from both sides00:12:05.213
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- may result in you making a mistake.00:12:11.653
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- If you use a negative and don´t know what the reality was like.00:12:13.302
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- This is also a nice thing to emphasize.00:12:16.542
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- Sometimes you can tell the image is reversed.00:12:22.287
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- I don´t mean inscriptions. You can simply feel something is wrong.00:12:24.315
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- But other times you don´t know what the reality was.00:12:30.488
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- Oh, I remember!00:13:01.514
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- I wanted to tell you something about my surname. This is the book I told you about.00:13:06.558
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- I want to show you my dad.00:13:16.109
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- That´s my dad.00:13:19.225
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- So that you don´t mistake him for another guy.00:13:25.884
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- The glass is coloured. This is what it looks like.00:13:30.643
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- It is coloured.00:13:33.759
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- Here you can feel the work of the person who made it.00:13:43.039
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- He must have held it like this,00:13:49.176
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- here he had to press against the wheel,00:13:51.372
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- I don´t know how,00:13:56.198
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- and here is the signature - Oth.00:13:59.916
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- He engraved it.00:14:03.270
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- Or someone asked him to engrave his name.00:14:04.598
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- He gave this piece of glass to somebody in Brno00:14:06.816
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- and I bought it at an auction.00:14:10.278
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- I was terribly upset that it was sold for such a small sum of money.00:14:11.979
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- So I went to the auction00:14:21.458
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- determined to get it. I was nervous,00:14:23.015
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- I knew I mustn´t show I´m interested,00:14:26.983
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- and at the last moment I bidded. It cost eight thousand,00:14:29.557
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- which was a lot for me at that time.00:14:35.252
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- But at the following auction his work was sold for twenty five thousand.00:14:37.403
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- I couldn´t afford to buy them any more.00:14:41.796
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- But I was happy to see the glass was sold for a better price,00:14:43.934
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- because they are beautiful objects.00:14:47.298
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- It was a small victory.00:14:51.882
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- I bought it about a week after my dad died.00:14:55.299
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- My intention was not to enlarge it,00:14:59.480
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- but I wanted it to appear natural within the surrounding space.00:15:05.178
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- When the object lies on a table, it´s small,00:15:11.419
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- and you get some impression,00:15:16.123
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- and if you want the same impression in a large hall,00:15:17.993
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- so it must be bigger.00:15:21.234
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- The form is emphasized a lot,00:15:25.027
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- It´s like impregnable... not impregnable glass... sounds nice but...00:15:28.475
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- the objects are in fact quite small,00:15:40.402
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- they can be held in a hand,00:15:41.961
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- the person who made them must have held them in his hand,00:15:43.736
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- we spoke about this already.00:15:48.422
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- I wanted it to look like a finding,00:15:51.133
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- and I was afraid that the large format will seem too showy,00:15:55.067
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- that it would look like something else,00:15:59.793
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- but finally I think this didn´t happen and I liked it.00:16:06.205
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- I don´t really like glass and photographs of glass00:16:10.877
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- the so-called art glass,00:16:18.732
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- but I do like my father´s glass very much for personal reasons.00:16:21.581
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- And I didn´t want his works to be photographed like glass.00:16:30.314
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- I wanted the glass to be photographed like an object standing on a table for example.00:16:34.609
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- Glass is often photographed on glass00:16:43.348
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- with lots of artificial light.00:16:45.150
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- I used only natural light,00:16:48.224
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- daylight from a roof light,00:16:50.759
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- and I wanted it to look as if the objects were forgotten somewhere,00:16:55.257
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- I didn´t want them to look like photos of objects,00:17:00.274
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- but in the end they did a bit00:17:04.616
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- because I always took a photo of one object or a group.00:17:10.721
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- Anyway, it was nice that they were photos of concrete objects,00:17:15.668
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- I have never done that before.00:17:21.013
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- Well, and since that time I can´t take photographs.00:17:33.296
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- It seemed so terribly important at that time,00:17:35.824
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- and I liked the outcome so much that I´m not interested in other things.00:17:41.287
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- I´ll finish the photos of my father´s work,00:17:46.083
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- I may have a book published,00:17:51.306
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- but that´s a different type of work,00:17:52.852
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- and things will move on and then I may start taking different photographs.00:17:58.766
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- I can continue, if I like, I haven´t taken photos of all my father´s things.00:18:08.931
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- But for me it´s over now, the event is over,00:18:16.641
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- as I told you, whenever I did a series of photographs,00:18:22.604
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- it was always for that one given moment, one event,00:18:29.318
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- one exhibition, one space00:18:35.590
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- and then I couldn´t continue00:18:37.809
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- although theoretically it would be possible.00:18:41.016
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- And this will be the same case. I may focus on a book.00:18:45.201
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- That´s to finish our chat about my father.00:18:51.295