SYMPOSIUM VASULKAS RELOADED
The VASULKAS RELOADED international symposium is taking place at Vašulka Kitchen Brno located at the Brno House of Arts (House of the Lords of Kunštat) in Brno, Czech Republic on 22 and 23 October 2024.
It will be devoted to the critical evaluation of the work of Steina and Woody Vasulkas and their significant contribution to the art world including the subject of open archives.
Steina and Woody Vasulkas have always encouraged the idea of an open archive, one that is freely accessible and that can be transformed into a site of collaboration for a wide range of interested parties. They conceived their own archive (vasulka.org) containing contextual material from early video art on an unprecedented scale including personal letters, photographs, grant applications, exhibition costs, technical descriptions, and more. They gradually donated their digitized materials to various institutions and individuals with the hope that they would not only preserve but also disseminate and continue to work with them. These archives are now scattered in several international locations. In doing so, they also explored avenues that turned out to be less fruitful endeavors, such as the creation of a living archive in Second Life. Vašulka Kitchen Brno is also one of the sites where the Vašulka's archive is being processed, where the digitized materials are accessible to all those interested in research related studies.
Recently, several major exhibitions took place in Iceland and Czech Republic that attempted to work with the Vasulkas' artefacts in a new way, and others are coming soon in USA and Iceland. The talks will critically discuss the role of Vasulkas in European and American new media context, their ways of (co)working with other artists and institutions, their approach towards sharing resources, as well as current possibilities of exhibiting and archiving their works.
PROGRAM
Open legacy of Steina and Woody Vasulkas
October 22nd, 2024
10 am - 13 pm Vašulkovi Locally / The Vasulkas Globally
10 - 10:30 am introduction Lenka Dolanová and Barbora Šedivá (Vašulka Kitchen Brno)
10:30 - 11 am Tomáš Ruller (CZ, Vašulka Kitchen Brno) - Performativity of The Vasulkas work
11 - 11:30 am Pavel Smetana (CZ) - The Vasulkas revisited: collaborations and reinventions
11:30 - 12 Miloš Vojtěchovský (CZ, Vašulka Kitchen Brno) - The Idler or Vasulkas Dream about Bohemian Institute
12:30 - 1 pm Petr Vrána - PARTICIPATION 2.0
1 - 2 pm LUNCH
2 - 5:30 pm Open Archives
2 - 2:30 pm Gaby Wijers (NL, LI-MA) - Violin Power reloaded
3:30 - 4 pm PAUZA
4:30 - 5 pm Joost Rekveld (NL) - A Palimpsest on the Electronic Analog Art
6 - 7:30 pm DINNER
7:30 - 9 pm SCREENING PROGRAM
Steina and Woody Vasulkas: In Search of the Castle (9:29 min.)
Joost Rekveld: Mechanisms Common to Disparate Phenomena; #59 (78 min.)
Open Archives - moderated discussion
October 23rd, 2024
10 am - 1 pm
The discussion focused on the possibilities of cooperation across the media art archives.
With the participation of: Dušan Barok (SK/NO, Monoskop), Barbora Šedivá (Vašulka Kitchen Brno), Jakub Frank (Muzeum umění Olomouc, CEAD), Larisa Dryansky (FR, Sorbonne Université), Matěj Strnad (National Film Archive in Prague), Gaby Wijers (NL, LI-MA).
ACCOMPANYING PROGRAM: EXHIBITION AND PROJECTION IN VAŠULKA KITCHEN BRNO GALLERY
From the archive of Vašulka family
A compilation of scans from the photographs of the Woody Vašulka's family. Prepared by Gajane Achverdjanová a Barbora Šedivá.
Also exhibited will be early notebooks by Bohuslav Woody Vašulka and the chronicle of the Vašulka family (Notes of the Vašulka family) as well as illustrated Bible by his mother Florentina Vašulková (b. 1899) originally from Násedlovice in Slovácko. She compiled the chronicle on the basis of a survey of village and church archives. Woody Vašulka claimed that he got his archival passion from his mother.
A part of the instalation is Vašulka's hat, jacket and camcoder, let by Petr Vrána.
SCREENING
Selection of short videos by predominantly Czech authors who were in their work inspired by Woody and Steina Vasulkas. Selected by Miloš Vojtěchovský.
Michal Baumbruck: Dlouhá/The Long One (1980, 4:12, music: Pavel Richter. From the collection of Galerie moderního umění v Hradci Králové)
Miloš Šejn: Delimitation Of Space By Fire (1982-83/2023, 6:44 min.)
Michael Bielicky: Circus Viciosus (1985, 4:29 min.)
Lucie Svobodová: Pictures (1989, 5:58 min., From the collection of National Film Archive in Prague)
Zdeněk Mezihorák: Kočka/Cat (1998, 6:13 min.)
Filip Cenek: UNTITLED. LIVE RE-EDIT (05:30, 2004)
Michal Kindernay, Jan Žalio: Occulus (2007, 5:38 min.)
Kof (Kryštof Pešek): Inertia (2012, 3 min.)
Slávo Krekovič: Playing Steina Playing the Maiden (2015, 1:06 min.)
Milan Guštar: Grey Circles (2016, 6 min.)
Joost Rekveld: #67 (2017, 5:40 - fragment)
Michal Cáb: Spectral Negative (2019, 6:12 min.)
Sara Bonaventura: The left hand of darkness. Rutt Etra Scan Processor Didactic Videos Homage (4’ 10’’, color, 4/3, SD, 2019)
David Stout: Contours and Coincidence (2021, 9:43 min.)
The symposium is being held with the financial participation of the European Union through the National Recovery Plan and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
