The video installation of Aleš Čermák creates a layered image of our time, the recent past and the (potential or near) future. While we are sinking deep into a mineshaft through the eyes of a drone, the partially mutated voice of the narrator presents unrelated (and yet relatable) events; the founding of the Intelligent Investment Fund and an explosion at a Turkish mine. The human ecosystem relies on an interconnected network of relations that could hardly be labeled as equal. Distant from each other due to power structures and technological innovations, we tend to forget that the laws of nature go for us, too and that an excessive disruption of the principle of balance necessarily leads to domino effects across systems. In Čermák’s video, the meditation on the complexity of the world and the impact of our activities is mediated by the figures of a doctor and a patient. Linking poetry, philosophy and prophetic ecstasy, their speeches are another metaphor of straying and searching for answers. The video asks many questions, ranging from social solidarity through ecology to the possibilities and impotence of medicine and artificial intelligence. The very way in which the video is installed does not give us much chance to turn away and ignore it. We are in the middle of a vortex.
