Our vision is a non-hierarchical safe/r space unburdened by structures of power - an atelier that functions as a living organism, art that exists as a collective phenomenon. The communal approach towards the atelier led by two artists-friends allows for constant critical examination of self and the functionality of our studies. We understand art as a tool for social change, not as a commodity. We emphasise physicality, live action, feminism, practical thinking about art, emotion, sensitivity, as well as a social and activist dimension of art, and a specific approach towards activism in relation to our own studies.
We place importance on interdisciplinary approaches and the scope of the applied media; we want to question social stereotypes, to examine language.
We work with positive discrimination aimed at groups disadvantaged by their financial status, or at students from various minority groups - racial, queer, mothers, and more. We upset the hierarchical patriarchal structure, we want to learn from each other. We do not want to give direct answers, we want to ask questions instead and create a space where they can be examined. We understand mistakes as something pedagogically positive - it is vital for us that our students are not afraid to make mistakes, experiment, fight against prevalent negativity. We focus on discovering ourselves and our bodies, on finding a characteristic medium for our work. We are building self-confidence through observing the local and global context of our own work.
We find collective work, experiences, support and discussions about societal themes fundamental. The tutors as well as the students are practicing artists. We all inhabit the same space of contemporary art and we all have a similar influence over the journey it takes.
We follow the Codex of the Feminist Art Institution.
New Media II Studio will introduce their practice and philosophy through work of some of their students.
NM II Video Showcase
Vanda Michalská
Megan Shaw documentary/2019
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This video was made in June 2019, during my Erasmus stay at ENSA in Dijon. The art school questioned my position and my skills. Instead of complying I presented this interview.
In this piece I am mocking the institution of authorship in visual art. I interviewed my friend, an artist named Megan Shaw, while attempting to deconstruct documentarist approaches.
The piece was made and the ego stayed where it belongs.
Dávid Brna (SK)
Things I wish I'd known as a bipolar teenager
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Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders is a document used worldwide to apply a psychiatric disorder to every one of us. Since 1952, when the first edition of the manual was written, the number of disorders has increased from approximately one hundred to over three hundred disorders in the latest edition of DSM 5, which was released in 2013.
Vell Sv
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The video-image of Vell Sv speaks through the language of archetypes. It is an iconic tableau. The video captures a performance where a rope serves as a symbol for a relationship. The performer is pulled in two directions by several other people, the rope digging into her skin. This situation takes place at a stormy sea shore.
Barbora Kropáčková
The reason why you love me
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This video was originally shown as a part of an installation, where it was presented along with a pile of pancakes meant to be consumed by the audience. This is a feminist, activist work. Certain feminist themes are criticised by the author, some are examined through a gender-swap. Barbora is interested in the subject of gender identity and the position women take up in the world today. Her work reflects the way czech society clashes with the feminist movement.
Ambre Petitcolas (FR)
Mortelles
7 clips in a row: envy | gluttony | greed | lust | pride | sloth | wrath
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An image essay focusing on social and religious rigidity targeting women. The video shows women - queer, cis or het who take agency over their own bodies and energy, through assuming the parts of the so-called, societally-coded ‘sins’. Each one adopts a role as one of the seven deadly sins. Pride, Greed, Envy, Wrath, Lust, Gluttony, Sloth.
Eliška Havlíková
Hungry, for more
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The associative sequence of text-based collages escapes from the screen into the space of the gallery. It creates an unsettling feeling of otherness. The author adopts strategies used in film and advertisement. She skillfully combines and edits images, text and sounds, combining personal accounts with alienating cynicism, suggestively manipulating with our - perhaps falsely cultivated - self-image.
Sonya The Moon (UK)
Das Kunst, das Mädchen und der Tod
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Sonya works with the concept of the Dance of Death. The Dance of Death, or Danse Macabre, is a medieval dance motif that was meant to remind the audience of the fragility and finality of their lives. She understands this motif as something very current due to the prevailing situation concerning the global pandemic, which in itself is also a certain kind of dancing with death.
Jan Matýsek
When was the last time you urinated into the ocean?
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Water as internet.
The human body carries in itself the base chemical compound of the ocean. We are all connected through it. We are able to communicate and think through water. This theme reflects the process of transhumanism and the state of the body against the backdrop of the ecological apocalypse that is currently taking place. Toxication meditation. A sound of a voice of a forcefully modified ocean flowing through our cells, blindly determining our evolution progress. It is a comfortable process of an uncontrollable bodily metamorphosis, of a programmed evolution and of the need to extend the human soul beyond its limits. Hope lies in the strength of a mutual connection made by that which is naturally reciprocated, through what we are made out of - through water.
Humans are made of water. They connect to polluted water and reach a state of higher consciousness, going beyond themselves; transforming and colonising the ocean, which they themselves have contaminated. They have modified water and through it - themselves. They are closer to some kind of a new, plastic, cyber-human, inside of who circulate substances common to all modified organisms.
Polina Revunenko
Akinikilop
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Polina works at the intersection of sound art, performance, video art, object work and healing through vibrations. She is inspired by different spiritual movements through which she tries to reassess the congenital system of values derived from christianity. Her music has a potential to heal due to her use of the specific frequency of 423 Hrz. Her sound compositions capture layered inner landscapes and create space to dream.
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The Žehra village is inspired by the events of March 2020. A roma settlement in the Košice region in eastern Slovakia had suffered a breakout of Covid-19, after the return of several inhabitants back to the village. Tens of residents had contracted the disease. The locals had initially isolated the ill inside of an old schoolhouse where they were provided with food and basic necessity items. Soon after, the slovakian government declared a total lock-down of the village, quoting a high risk of the infection spreading beyond the village borders as the main reason. Both the army and the police have been called to action to lock down the settlement and to prevent the spreading of the disease. With the arrival of the armed forces, though, another problem arose in the form of the non-profit organisations who have been forbidden from entering the village. These organisations are instrumental as providers of employment for the locals, unemployment being the most common problem faced by the residents. The inhabitants were also denied access to schools, including nurseries. Food deliveries had also been halted. Many local children attend schools outside of the settlement and do not have access to long-distance education, since most residents do not own either a mobile phone or a computer. The life in the village has been completely cut off and the inhabitants have been left unable to do anything but wait. According to experts the local Roma people find it harder to follow the quarantine restrictions, not only because of their community-based lifestyle, but also because of the common living situation where many people share one household. The settlements also struggle with limited access to clean water and a functioning sewage system, which complicates upholding the preventative hygienic measures.
The “Žehra” project has been created in Sims 4, which makes it more of a game inside a game. Kubíková works with the idea of using a game as a medium which, through the use of its inherent properties, can become a carrier of critical information.