PUBLICATIONS 01.
PROJECT: ASYMPTOTE
WITH: ADAM CSOKA KELLER
Another important field of myth-making is political ideology. How much does it take from techniques of cults, religions, and inventing stories that sway crowds? Or has it always been one and the same thing? All beliefs of the past and their narratives were probably somehow politically motivated. And the myth would support the goal. Yet as we often experience, once a goal is met many promises turn out to be mere fiction, with more and more energy needed to sustain them. In project Asymptote, created with Adam Csoka Keller (video) and Arielle Esther (sound), we became interested in resonance. We explored how an obvious deception can persist in society for decades despite its clarity. And even when it ceases to exist, like a thing without a body its spirit remains in space, minds and lives of people.
The project was primarily influenced by my growing up in Slovakia, one of the post-Soviet satellites (former Czechoslovakia), and its architecture is authentic to the era of so-called "socialism." Places, former symbols of power and greatness, are elevated to make the person feel small. Yet today, they stand still, stripped of essential purpose, abandoned or forgotten like gravestones of their former glory. Asymptote merges past and present, by reflecting on one at the time of the other. The project's basis lies in a historical foundation that collaborates with a fictional scenario to blur the lines between reality and memory. Authentic testimonies and archive materials are reinterpreted by the contemporary digital language of fiction based on truth. The goal is to reflect on the past and, most importantly, address the current state of society and its values. The project deals with several topics, such as paranoia, surveillance, uniformity, normalization, or censorship, all being part of this cultural legacy and having lasting effects on actual situations, thinking, and behavior.
All body forms in Asymptote are folded within the space to shape a coherent geometrical composition, symbolizing the regime itself. People create a pattern. Each is stripped of individuality to become unified, creating a society where every difference is an anomaly. We repeatedly observe a similar pattern in reoccurring cycles that have not ended yet, feeling like the same specter returns in different costumes, always disguised for some time. However, the illusion of power has become more and more apparent.
In the introduction, I speculate about seeing forward while looking back, and this is where I want to return to the theme again. Myths are passed through generations to contain essential wisdom and knowledge of improvement. The lesson learned is to read carefully and between the lines behind their literal meanings. Donna Haraway writes in Cyborg Manifesto that social reality is lived social relations, our most important political construction, and a world-changing fiction. We need to recognize a responsibility in the myth-making of today and what we want to communicate with our works and actions. In a way, we are what we believe and communicate what we create. Let's make myths continuously and carefully.