P.O.L.E.
Involved with various modes of creative production, Pole is a collective which seeks functional forms of collaboration. In Pole, nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes. Pole makes it possible for us to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticize after dinner, just as we have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.
- 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
Love it! Especially the manifesto and the emblem – it’s all very Poleuminatti.