P.O.L.E.

• Apparently, I made a huge scene there...00:00:28.207
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• Breaking chairs...00:00:31.564
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• When he gets drunk, he becomes aggressive.00:00:34.267
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• They told me so. I can't remember it.00:00:38.158
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• Really, you don't?00:00:42.815
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• It will be better this way. Each gets his turn.00:00:47.611
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• So you start.00:00:50.047
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• You can start with general questions.00:00:52.177
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• How was Pole founded... What does the title mean...00:00:57.614
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• Pole is the result of a collaboration between us, between friends.00:01:05.238
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• A long time ago, we wanted to found a civic association,00:01:16.157
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• we chose the name Pole,00:01:23.495
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• because it was the only one we could agree on.00:01:26.453
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• It doesn't really mean anything.00:01:30.137
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• We searched for a neutral name, which could mean anything.00:01:31.488
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• But it's nothing important.00:01:37.792
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• I think the original title was:00:01:40.424
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• the Council for Transfocal Misunderstanding.00:01:43.683
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• This was to be the name.00:01:47.350
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• Eventually, it was too funny.00:01:50.262
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• Pole is an abbreviation, but I am not able to explain it now.00:01:52.495
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• It's a bit complicated and I can't remember.00:01:59.866
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• I don't really like the abbreviation, but...00:02:01.954
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• it means: Space for Organized Local Entropy.00:02:05.331
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• It's a contradiction: Organized Entropy...00:02:10.238
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• But we like it because it describes a situation that occurs at exhibitions.00:02:15.293
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• It is often chaos. But an organized chaos.00:02:24.467
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• What's the field of interest of this group? Or organization?00:02:33.774
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• What would you call it?00:02:40.504
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• A platform, I guess.00:02:41.505
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• It's an open association, with very varied activities.00:02:43.929
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• We have the legal status of a civic association,00:02:49.635
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• but we don't intend to give a homogenous impression.00:02:53.859
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• Not all projects involve every person in Pole.00:02:57.956
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• There might be only two, but the project is labelled Pole.00:03:01.625
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• But almost anything can carry the label.00:03:05.107
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• I think we are all left-wing in our political views.00:03:07.208
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• And we want to express these views by means of art.00:03:12.858
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• It's not that clear to me.00:03:21.454
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• Considering the possibility of some kind of social support,00:03:23.756
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• we should remain within the sphere of art.00:03:29.194
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• Organizing exhibitions, etc.00:03:34.245
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• We put together exhibitions, or other events.00:03:36.643
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• The viewer walks through the gallery00:03:40.362
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• and gets a feeling that what he sees is important.00:03:43.246
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• That it's not interchangeable.00:03:46.553
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• We are used to work with form. The format of an exhibition is important.00:03:48.345
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• Which of your works could be classified as Pole?00:04:00.383
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• Officially, it's the exhibition about students,00:04:03.626
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• but it's classified as such after the fact, Pole didn't exist back then.00:04:07.609
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• But it was done by the same people.00:04:11.097
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• When the guys decided to create Pole, they already worked together,00:04:12.574
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• Later on, some activities were included as Pole,00:04:18.500
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• but which had been done before Pole was actually created.00:04:23.654
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• The only Pole project I participated in as co-creator00:04:29.197
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• was the "Opportunities of a Student's Life".00:04:34.388
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• I think the idea to create this exhibition was Tomáš Uhnák's.00:04:36.255
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• It was a project done in cooperation with the Students' Council.00:04:40.717
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• At the anniversary of International Students' Day,00:04:48.286
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• we wanted to put on big project.00:04:53.395
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• I addressed Václav Magid and Vasil00:05:00.170
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• and we tried to make a project reaching beyond00:05:05.219
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• the common understanding of what "students" are.00:05:09.923
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• The idea was to set it up in a gallery space,00:05:13.561
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• but to create an educational background for students,00:05:18.477
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• so that they became familiar with the history of students' movements,00:05:24.910
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• with various academic viewpoints about students.00:05:28.206
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• Based on that, they could reflect their own situation00:05:34.063
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• and hopefully become active themeselves.00:05:37.653
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• Is this activism also important for you in real life?00:05:39.815
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• What's the connection between your activities at AVU,00:05:44.356
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• your activism and Pole?00:05:47.471
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• Some people from the group were active in it,00:05:50.909
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• but it's each and everyone's personal choice,00:05:57.740
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• a matter of his or her political convictions.00:06:01.353
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• The group has nothing to do with it.00:06:03.290
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• Most of us are engaged in various cases.00:06:08.168
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• We have certain opinions about certain things.00:06:14.610
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• And this is reflected in our association.00:06:16.872
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• What other projects have you worked on since then?00:06:28.323
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• We work very openly -00:06:31.418
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• an official activity of Pole is, for example, the exhibition "Diligence" in Brno.00:06:36.717
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• The original working title was "Colony of bees".00:06:43.528
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• We tried to reflect on bee-keeping and on bees.00:06:46.568
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• Bees as a phenomenon within the frame of society.00:06:53.339
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• All political regimes use bees as a metaphor for society,00:06:59.918
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• But use it differently each time.00:07:09.129
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• This is what we wanted to be heard.00:07:11.541
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• The symbol of the bee is used to represent diligence.00:07:16.467
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• It was a positive symbol for left-wing movements.00:07:21.564
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• Today, this meaning has totally disappeared.00:07:26.661
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• We wanted to reflect on why it is so.00:07:30.746
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• How this metaphor works today.00:07:33.774
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• The last politician to use this metaphor was Mitterand,00:07:36.173
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• then suddenly no one used the bee metaphor anymore.00:07:40.473
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• So the exhibition was about what is not relevant and why.00:07:43.827
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• The exhibition was trying to find a form of engaged art,00:07:48.995
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• which is not very present here.00:07:57.242
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• It wasn't to copy what the Guma Guar do -00:08:00.218
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• a very straight-forward, politically-engaged art.00:08:03.030
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• But we wanted it to be engaged at the same time.00:08:05.424
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• So it was a search for a position.00:08:09.990
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• What are your topics? What is the link between them?00:08:23.665
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• Tomáš's cooking is an important connection between us.00:08:28.884
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• We don't function on the basis of a program,00:08:35.435
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• but rather by spontaneous consensus.00:08:38.795
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• For all of us, the group is an opportunity to do things00:08:45.167
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• which are beyond our "qualifications".00:08:51.942
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• For instance, I wasn't used to working in a group of people,00:08:56.360
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• so that's been very important for me.00:09:02.198
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• Everything has a group signature.00:09:04.464
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• A group authorship.00:09:07.866
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• And that's... that's it.00:09:11.206
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• It's built on an unwillingness to define a category00:09:17.741
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• into which one could put it.00:09:25.335
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• You could make a connection between the pieces,00:09:28.424
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• but we don't want it to be like that.00:09:33.017
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• We'd be happy if the projects had different styles00:09:34.408
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• because we don't want to tie our hands by committing to something.00:09:40.010
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• Our only statement is this.00:09:44.382
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• There is time to do one thing but it's also good to be free enough00:09:50.215
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• to do something else.00:09:55.642
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• POLE is a group which, on the basis of various approaches to artistic creation,00:09:58.661
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• is looking for functional forms of cooperation00:10:03.662
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• In Pole, no one works exclusively in pre-determined area,00:10:08.663
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• each person can gather knowledge in whichever field.00:10:11.664
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• Pole enables us to do this today and that tomorrow,00:10:14.665
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• to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, herd cattle in the evening00:10:17.666
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• criticize after meals at one's leisure without having to become00:10:20.667
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• a fisherman, a shepherd or a critic.00:10:23.668
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• How do you see the future? What projects are you preparing now?00:10:26.690
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• Children are the future.00:10:30.277
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• I don't know why you are laughing.00:10:34.178

one comment for “P.O.L.E.”

1. Tundish says on30. Jan. 2012:
   

   Love it! Especially the manifesto and the emblem – it’s all very Poleuminatti.

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