Reconstruction no. 6 / Vernissage

The currently five-part video series called Reconstruction by Daniel Nováček has been created since 2018. Its central theme is searching for happiness within a mechanized protocol-driven algorithmized world. Individual images reconstruct experiences of his or of his closest ones. Thus, his personal perspective represents a point for broader social-political themes. It is also a generational testimony focused on important aspects which define a perception of author’s own generation.

In Reconstruction #6, he is concerned with a question, based on two this time purposefully general stories, of how they can be presented by audiovisual means, dominant display and impulse to think about the current shape of the world and its potential development. The work is based on the condition of powerful interweaving of storytelling tools and specific ideological concepts, which makes them unsuitable for presenting other worlds (and the imaginative thinking associated with them). They serve as a confirmation of principles and thoughts which give rise to these rules while accenting the infinite growth, reflecting the contemporary configuration of our world which is founded upon the never-ending influx of media and tech news, GDP growth, and increasing productivity. The basis of what we understand as a story already includes a specific worldview.

One of the fundamental objects of philosophy is the language change which transforms our way of thinking and, in turn, our real impact on the world. The activation potential of narrative audiovisual works does not rely purely on contents of the presented stories but also on their ways of storytelling.

If we really want to imagine possible futures of our world (which may be a future of degrowth much like in this instance), one of the conditions for the feasibility of such imaginations is our ability to learn to tell stories which are not based on the infinite growth and continual transformation.Curator: Helena Todorová