Macula on Artyčok

Members of the group have changed a lot and until recently I believed there are other artists too.The question is if it is a group or a company. But the answer isn’t important, as it would just give evidence of the Czech conditions in judging different attitudes to artwork. I feel it is rather an art group. Macula’s work puts together artists, who found certain limits of their work and together they try to outperform them. They focus on video mapping their own way. A graphic designer approaches the surface of a facade in a different way than a photographer and together they are able to give it a dimension of a time axis. Connecting a static surface (random space) and a moving picture appears exciting to me.

Key to the selection are different approaches of the artists to the the video medium. For Petr Krátký is video a contemporary fulfillment of his conceptual attitude, Mark Ther is familiar with a film language, and Macula uses video as a design strategy.

David Kořínek (curator of the August issue profiles)

The MACULA project deals with the relationship between a painting,00:00:00.500
sound and the viewer. It looks for new approaches,00:00:06.000
exploring their possibilities. The goal is to find ideal symbiosis00:00:10.500
and to satisfy audiovisual nihilism.00:00:16.019
Video mapping is a new style stemming from VJing.00:00:19.519
Instead of a 2D screen videos are now projected00:00:23.923
on any object.00:00:28.423
The Macula project was born out of VJing.00:01:02.655
It also makes use of video loops00:01:09.618
but the purpose of the loop is to tell a story.00:01:13.616
This means that the repeating loops00:01:18.242
are used to move the story forward.00:01:21.742
There's a visual code that you decipher00:01:25.276
and discover more and more details in the repetition.00:01:28.753
The loops are interconnected,00:01:34.278
constantly moving forward.00:01:37.778
It's a basic concept. Life happens in loops!00:01:41.278
The loop is a primal element.00:01:45.956
We like to use the power of this medium.00:01:49.503
It allows us to create impressive illusions00:01:54.842
of transforming the surfaces of the objects.00:01:59.257
We try to be flexible,00:02:04.752
accepting various principles and impulses00:02:07.957
in order to diversify the medium we use.00:02:13.611
So it's a compound of many different styles.00:02:19.111
About our projection in Liverpool...00:02:44.250
Just imagine that one pixel of the projection00:02:48.638
is about this size on the building.00:02:53.702
I think we're still looking for our own style.00:03:22.732
But maybe this is going to become00:03:28.502
a typical trait of our work,00:03:32.002
the fact that we explore the different options00:03:35.206
of telling a story to make it intelligible.00:03:40.414
Maybe there will never be any common element00:03:45.678
of all our projections.00:03:50.678
Does your work evolve?00:03:53.705
The project hasn't existed for long00:03:57.103
but have you noticed any development00:04:00.603
in your works in the last year?00:04:04.103
By that I mean changes of your expressive methods.00:04:07.810
Well... the changes are minute.00:04:13.265
We've done only a few projections00:04:16.964
so it's difficult to compare them.00:04:22.430
Maybe the changes will show after some time.00:04:29.508
But in my opinion the development is minimal.00:04:35.015
Everything was based on our initial concept.00:05:16.375
It's very simple.00:05:20.782
We used an old historical building00:05:23.781
and one that had just been built00:05:27.281
and sent them both to the future.00:05:31.039
It all depends on the way you look at the building.00:05:39.530
We found out that the old building00:05:45.878
was the first high rise in the world00:05:49.378
and it served as a model00:05:52.928
for other buildings of reinforced steel,00:05:58.765
like in Manhattan or Moscow.00:06:03.178
We wanted this kind of information to be visible00:06:06.188
in the projection, like steel beams and concrete.00:06:11.674
Then we found out that the upper part00:06:17.068
is segmented and battered00:06:21.068
and we had the idea00:06:24.568
that everything could look like in theatre.00:06:27.973
The top would be the backstage00:06:31.990
governing the action on the surface of the building.00:06:35.829
So this is how we came to the final result.00:06:41.757
The feeling you have during the projection00:06:55.501
is very intimate,00:07:01.362
even though the game we play with the building00:07:04.514
isn't intimate at all,00:07:09.079
at least not in this sense.00:07:12.079
I can describe the feeling as virtual tenderness.00:07:16.039
You only touch the object with a light beam,00:07:21.125
there's no physical contact.00:07:25.236
On the one hand, it's very cold and sterile,00:07:28.803
but on the other hand00:07:33.517
our connection with the project was so close00:07:36.517
that we felt like we knew the building inside out.00:07:41.487
We'd be looking at it for 10 hours a day00:07:46.990
so we had a strong relation to it,00:07:52.509
without the need of touching it.00:07:56.212
The building was in all our thoughts.00:08:00.062
It feels really solid to me.00:08:06.499
If you get stuck in your own mode of expression,00:08:12.306
it may become incomprehensible or boring00:08:17.508
for other people.00:08:21.983
That's why we tried00:08:24.900
to make the building tell stories00:08:27.920
and reflect the history it had been through.00:08:32.939
A projection can work as a reflection.00:08:37.715
One of the effects used in video mapping00:08:53.160
is tracing the facade of a building.00:08:58.616
It lets you show00:09:02.390
that you're able to map the object00:09:04.890
to perfect details.00:09:08.943
In fact,00:09:12.481
you present the reality with a virtual beam.00:09:14.981
This is the very base of video mapping.00:09:20.362
Only later came other effects, such as 3D,00:09:24.708
colors and so on.00:09:29.843
People thanked us00:10:10.168
for showing them how it all worked.00:10:13.101
We played with the planets descending from the sky00:10:17.495
to their respective places on the astrolabe.00:10:23.020
This sparked the interest in the people's minds00:10:26.954
and they became active00:10:32.131
in searching for more information on their own.00:10:34.631
The demand for this kind of work is very high00:10:41.362
at this time.00:10:46.362
Maybe we've already become the mainstream,00:10:48.819
something like an advertising agency00:10:53.343
that is commissioned by businesses00:10:57.170
to promote products by means of video mapping.00:11:00.670
But I don't think this is going to work here.00:11:06.483
Many do this00:11:10.953
but we don't need to become the next in the line.00:11:14.249
It's necessary to show new possible approaches00:11:19.249
without becoming a commodity.00:11:23.749
We can't work on some buildings,00:11:45.486
even if we wanted to,00:11:48.986
because they're not suitable for it.00:11:51.986
For instance, this kind of decoration00:11:55.998
is always very difficult.00:11:59.498
It's too detailed.00:12:02.814
Too many details can spoil the final result,00:12:06.057
they make it less impressive.00:12:11.768
That's why a model is always necessary.00:12:15.319
The highlight of Prague - the Vítkov monument.00:12:18.873
We've never chosen our objects ourselves.00:12:23.659
We wanted this to be our first project,00:12:27.721
our exclusive work,00:12:33.107
funded only from dedicated sources.00:12:36.215
In fact, we'd like to find an ideal balance00:12:40.367
between these two principles,00:12:45.216
between the abstract level of pure light,00:12:50.281
and working with color and narration.00:12:55.585

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