Difference between revisions of "Czechia"

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===Chronology===
 
===Chronology===
−
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+
<div class=threecol>
 
* March 1918, Publication of the first edition of [[Červen]] (June), a biweekly magazine edited by the poet S. K.Neumann with contributions by future members of the avant-garde [[Devĕtsil]] group [http://www.avantgarde-museum.com/en/standstill/authors/1920-1929/id-89/#id-89]. It also acts as the mouthpiece of the Tvrdošíjní (Stubborn Ones) group of artists, including Josef Čapek, Václav Špíla, Rudolf Kremlička, Jan Zrzavý, Vlastislav Hoffmann and Otakar Mravánek, who open their first exhibition at the Weinert gallery, Prague, on 30 March They remain active until 1924, exhibiting in Dresden, Geneva, Berlin, Hannover, and Vienna as well as Czechoslovakia.
 
* March 1918, Publication of the first edition of [[Červen]] (June), a biweekly magazine edited by the poet S. K.Neumann with contributions by future members of the avant-garde [[Devĕtsil]] group [http://www.avantgarde-museum.com/en/standstill/authors/1920-1929/id-89/#id-89]. It also acts as the mouthpiece of the Tvrdošíjní (Stubborn Ones) group of artists, including Josef Čapek, Václav Špíla, Rudolf Kremlička, Jan Zrzavý, Vlastislav Hoffmann and Otakar Mravánek, who open their first exhibition at the Weinert gallery, Prague, on 30 March They remain active until 1924, exhibiting in Dresden, Geneva, Berlin, Hannover, and Vienna as well as Czechoslovakia.
 
* 6 Jun 1919, Publication in Červen of Apollinaire's poem Zone in a translation (Pasmo) by Karel Čapek, with linocuts by his brother Josef. This, together with Čapek's anthology of contemporary French poetry, Francouzská poesie nové doby (1920), is widely influential among the new generation of poets.
 
* 6 Jun 1919, Publication in Červen of Apollinaire's poem Zone in a translation (Pasmo) by Karel Čapek, with linocuts by his brother Josef. This, together with Čapek's anthology of contemporary French poetry, Francouzská poesie nové doby (1920), is widely influential among the new generation of poets.
Line 147: Line 147:
 
==Geometric abstraction, Neo-constructivism, Op art, Kinetic art==
 
==Geometric abstraction, Neo-constructivism, Op art, Kinetic art==
 
; Artists
 
; Artists
−
[[Hugo Demartini]], [[Radoslav Kratina]], [[Stanislav Zippe]], [[Syntéza]] group, [[Vladislav Čáp]], [[Jaroslav Krška]]
+
<div class=threecol>
 +
* [[Zdeněk Pešánek]], 1896-1965, worked in Prague
 +
* [[Syntéza]], 1965-1969, Prague
 +
* [[Zdeněk Sýkora]], 1920-2011, Prague/Louny
 +
* [[Vladislav Mirvald]], 1921-2003, Louny
 +
* [[Jiří Novák]], 1922-2010, Prague
 +
* [[Radoslav Kratina]], 1928-1999, Brno/Prague, [[Klub konkrétistů]] member
 +
* [[Hugo Demartini]], 1931-2010, Prague
 +
* [[Zdeněk Kučera]], 1935-2016, Ostrava, [[Klub konkrétistů]] member
 +
* [[Jiří Hilmar]], 1937, Prague/Germany, [[Klub konkrétistů]] member
 +
* [[Václav Jíra]], 1939, Louny
 +
* [[Vratislav Karel Novák]], 1942, Prague
 +
* [[Stanislav Zippe]], 1943-2024, Prague, [[Syntéza]] member
 +
* [[Jan Wojnar]], 1944-2014, Třinec
 +
</div>
 +
 
 
; Literature
 
; Literature
−
{{:Media_art_in_Central_and_Eastern_Europe_Bibliography|transcludesection=visualresearch-cz}}
+
{{:Central_and_Eastern_Europe_Bibliography|transcludesection=visualresearch-cz}}
  
 
== Multimedia environments==
 
== Multimedia environments==
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* critic Jiří Padrta in a review of an exhibition of kinetic art described the perceiver as a type, "highly active, open, not only in terms of sight, but also in terms of multiple-sense perception, able to register and emotionally grasp very diverse sensations at the same time." (Jiří Padrta, "Světlo a pohyb" (Light and Motion, review of an exhibition), ''Výtvarné umění'' XVI, 1966, nos 6-7, p 327.)
 
* critic Jiří Padrta in a review of an exhibition of kinetic art described the perceiver as a type, "highly active, open, not only in terms of sight, but also in terms of multiple-sense perception, able to register and emotionally grasp very diverse sensations at the same time." (Jiří Padrta, "Světlo a pohyb" (Light and Motion, review of an exhibition), ''Výtvarné umění'' XVI, 1966, nos 6-7, p 327.)
 
; Literature
 
; Literature
−
{{:Media_art_in_Central_and_Eastern_Europe_Bibliography|transcludesection=multimedia-cz}}
+
{{:Central_and_Eastern_Europe_Bibliography|transcludesection=multimedia-cz}}
  
 
==Mail art==
 
==Mail art==
 
* [[Jiří Valoch]], [[J.H. Kocman]], [[Ivan Preissler]], [[Milan Knížák]]
 
* [[Jiří Valoch]], [[J.H. Kocman]], [[Ivan Preissler]], [[Milan Knížák]]
 +
 +
== Intermedia art, sound art ==
 +
; Literature
 +
{{:Central_and_Eastern_Europe_Bibliography|transcludesection=intermedia-cz}}
  
 
== Computer and computer-aided art ==
 
== Computer and computer-aided art ==
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* [[Petr Skala]], video artist, film director, screenwriter. In late 1982 began to work systematically with the video technology, which he had not previously regarded as an artistic medium, but only as a tool for preserving his abstract moving images.
 
* [[Petr Skala]], video artist, film director, screenwriter. In late 1982 began to work systematically with the video technology, which he had not previously regarded as an artistic medium, but only as a tool for preserving his abstract moving images.
 
* [[Radek Pilař]], bought video camera and VCR in 1983, then first video experiments. Since 1988 organised exhibitions of video art.
 
* [[Radek Pilař]], bought video camera and VCR in 1983, then first video experiments. Since 1988 organised exhibitions of video art.
 +
* [[Petr Vrána]], emigrated to Germany in 1981 where he began working with video; returned to Czechia in c.1990.
 +
* other artists active in the 1980s: [[Kateřina Scheuflerová]], [[Pavel Scheufler]], [[Tomáš Kepka]], [[Miro Dopita]], [[Lucie Svobodová]], [[Ivan Tatíček]], [[René Slauka]], [[Tomáš Ruller]], a.o.
  
 
; Initiatives
 
; Initiatives
 
* [[Independent Videoart Prague]] at the Industrial Design Institute, 1972-1990. Members included [[Miroslav Klivar]], [[Jaroslav Pavelka]], [[Zdenka Čechová]] and many others.
 
* [[Independent Videoart Prague]] at the Industrial Design Institute, 1972-1990. Members included [[Miroslav Klivar]], [[Jaroslav Pavelka]], [[Zdenka Čechová]] and many others.
−
* [[Videomagazine]], a tamizdat video periodical produced from 1985 to 1989 in London exile by Czech journalist [[Karel Kyncl]].
+
* ''[[Videomagazine]]'', a tamizdat video periodical produced from 1985 to 1989 in London exile by Czech journalist [[Karel Kyncl]].
−
* [[Original Videojournal]] (1987-1989), a dissident video magazine which started from Vaclav and Olga Havel's initiative; edited and copied secretly on school equipment.
+
* ''[[Original Videojournal]]'', 1987-1989, a dissident video magazine which started from Vaclav and Olga Havel's initiative; edited and copied secretly on school equipment.
−
* [[Video Salon]]. An animation producer and illustrator [[Radek Pilař]] was making video art tapes from 1987 and gathered a number of artists to form a video group. This "Video Salon" made their first exhibition in the summer of 1989 with numerous screenings and four video installations. The members had access to information on video installation because one of the members, Dr. Vancat, was then working for the National Art Archive where there were photos of works by Nam June Paik and Bill Viola. Filmmakers [[Petr Skala]], [[Tomáš Kepka]], [[Ivan Tatíček]], photographers [[Pavel Scheufler]], [[Pavel Jasanský]], [[Michal Pacina]], [[Jasoň Šilhan]], visual artists [[Lucie Svobodová]], [[Věra Geislerová]], [[Lenka Štarmanová]], [[Kateřina Scheuflerová]], [[Roman Milerský]], [[René Slauka]], and architect [[Miro Dopita]]. Active until the mid-1990s. Since 1993 directed by [[Petr Skala]].
+
* [[Video Salon]]. An animation producer and illustrator [[Radek Pilař]] was making video art tapes from 1987 and gathered a number of artists to form a video group. This "Video Salon" made their first exhibition in the summer of 1989 with numerous screenings and four video installations. The members had access to information on video installation because one of the members, Dr. Vancat, was then working for the National Art Archive where there were photos of works by Nam June Paik and Bill Viola. Filmmakers [[Petr Skala]], [[Tomáš Kepka]], [[Ivan Tatíček]], photographers [[Pavel Scheufler]], [[Pavel Jasanský]], [[Michal Pacina]], [[Jasoň Šilhan]], visual artists [[Lucie Svobodová]], [[Věra Geislerová]], [[Lenka Štarmanová]], [[Kateřina Scheuflerová]], [[Roman Milerský]], [[René Slauka]], and architect [[Miro Dopita]]. From 1993 led by [[Petr Skala]]. Active until the mid-1990s.  
 +
* Media archive. Initiated in the early 1990s by [[Petr Vrána]], [[Woody Vasulka]], a.o. Collaboration of Video Association and Rock Café. [http://archiv.krajane.net//articleDetail.view?id=1618]
  
 
; Exhibitions
 
; Exhibitions
−
* Video Salon, Summer 1989. Numerous screenings and four video installations.
+
* [http://25fps.cz/2018/den-videa-1989-2018/ Den videa], Parku kultury a oddechu Julia Fučíka, Prague, 1989. Numerous screenings and four video installations. Organised by [[Video Section of the Union of Czechoslovak Artists]]. [https://www.dokrevue.cz/clanky/video-smycka-nekonecno]
−
* [http://25fps.cz/2018/den-videa-1989-2018/ Den videa], Prague, 1989.
 
 
* [[Historie československé demokracie]], Prague, 1990.
 
* [[Historie československé demokracie]], Prague, 1990.
 
* [[Český obraz elektronický]], Prague, 1994.
 
* [[Český obraz elektronický]], Prague, 1994.
−
* [http://25fps.cz/2018/den-videa-1989-2018/ Den videa 1989/2018], Prague, 2018.
+
* [[Video Art 94 Nature in Motion|Video Art '94: Nature in Motion]], Prague, 1994.
 +
* [[Video vidim ich sehe|Video, vidím, ich sehe]], Brno, 1994.
 +
* [[Frisbee]], Bucharest, Amsterdam, Brno, Ostrava, Liberec, 2004-2006.
 +
* [[Punctum]], Prague, 2007.
 +
* [http://25fps.cz/2018/den-videa-1989-2018/ Den videa 1989/2018], Průmyslový palác Výstaviště Praha Holešovice, Prague, 4 Sep 2018.
 +
 
 +
; Compilations
 +
* ''Antologie českého umění videa'', 3 vols., ed. Petr Skala, 1996.
  
 
; Literature
 
; Literature
Line 330: Line 358:
  
 
== New media art, Media culture==
 
== New media art, Media culture==
−
; Cities
 
−
[[Prague]], [[Brno]], [[Cheb]], [[Hradec Králové]], [[Liberec]], [[Opava]], [[Ostrava]], [[Plzeň]], [[Ústí nad Labem]], [[Zlín]].
 
−
 
 
; 1990s
 
; 1990s
 
* [[Radek Pilař]] founded a department of electronic animation and multimedia art at FAMU in Prague in 1990.
 
* [[Radek Pilař]] founded a department of electronic animation and multimedia art at FAMU in Prague in 1990.
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== Media theory ==
 
== Media theory ==
−
* [[Vilém Flusser]], theorist.
+
* [[Vilém Flusser]] (1920-1991), philosopher.
−
* [[Jiří Valoch]]
 
 
* [[Keiko Sei]], writer, curator and educator on media and media art. Until 2002 she has been teaching at the  [[Video_FaVU_VUT_Brno|Video/Performance/Multimedia Studio]] FaVU Brno. Co-curated [[Orbis Fictus]] 1994.
 
* [[Keiko Sei]], writer, curator and educator on media and media art. Until 2002 she has been teaching at the  [[Video_FaVU_VUT_Brno|Video/Performance/Multimedia Studio]] FaVU Brno. Co-curated [[Orbis Fictus]] 1994.
−
* [[Prague Media Symposium]] 1991-98, international and interdisciplinary symposium on the media development, communications philosophy and media art organized by Goethe-Institut Prag, AVU and SCCA.
+
* [[Prague Media Symposium]], international and interdisciplinary symposium on the media development, communications philosophy and media art organised by Goethe-Institut Prag, AVU and SCCA, 1991-1998.
 +
* [[Denisa Kera]] (1974)
 +
* [[Tomáš Dvořák]] (1975)
 +
* [[Kateřina Svatoňová]] (1978), film and media theorist
 +
* [[Kateřina Krtilová]] (1979)
 +
* [[Lucie Česálková]] (1983)
 +
 
 +
== Cities ==
 +
[[Prague]], [[Brno]], [[Cheb]], [[Hradec Králové]], [[Liberec]], [[Olomouc]], [[Opava]], [[Ostrava]], [[Plzeň]], [[Ústí nad Labem]], [[Zlín]].
  
−
== Others ==
 
−
* [[Vladislav Mirvald]]
 
−
* [[Jiří Bielecki]]
 
−
* [[Jarmila Cihankova]]
 
−
* [[Radoslav Kratina]]
 
−
* [[Jiří Hilmar]]
 
−
* [[Hugo Demartini]], neo-constructivist
 
−
* [[Stanislav Kolibal]], neo-constructivist
 
−
* [[Jan Kubiček]], neo-constructivist
 
  
  
 
{{Countries}}
 
{{Countries}}

Latest revision as of 11:38, 18 January 2024

Interwar avant-garde[edit]

Artists[edit]

Chronology[edit]

  • March 1918, Publication of the first edition of Červen (June), a biweekly magazine edited by the poet S. K.Neumann with contributions by future members of the avant-garde Devĕtsil group [2]. It also acts as the mouthpiece of the Tvrdošíjní (Stubborn Ones) group of artists, including Josef Čapek, Václav Špíla, Rudolf Kremlička, Jan Zrzavý, Vlastislav Hoffmann and Otakar Mravánek, who open their first exhibition at the Weinert gallery, Prague, on 30 March They remain active until 1924, exhibiting in Dresden, Geneva, Berlin, Hannover, and Vienna as well as Czechoslovakia.
  • 6 Jun 1919, Publication in Červen of Apollinaire's poem Zone in a translation (Pasmo) by Karel Čapek, with linocuts by his brother Josef. This, together with Čapek's anthology of contemporary French poetry, Francouzská poesie nové doby (1920), is widely influential among the new generation of poets.
  • Raoul Haussmann and Richard Huelsenbeck organise two Dadaist soirées in Prague.
  • 1920, Musaion, an arts journal edited by Karel Čapek, begins publication and becomes the magazine of the Tvrdošíjní group. A Dadaist unit is founded in June by Jaromír Berák, Artus Černík, and Zdeněk Kalista in Prague.
  • 1921, Karel Čapek's science fiction play R.U.R. (Rossum's Universal Robots) premieres in Prague. (It was translated from Czech into English by Paul Selver and adapted for the English stage by Nigel Playfair. Basil Dean produced R.U.R. in April 1923 for the Reandean Company at St. Martin's Theatre, London. The play's US première was at the Garrick Theatre in New York City in October 1922, where it ran for 184 performances, a production in which Spencer Tracy and Pat O'Brien played robots in their Broadway debuts. It also played in Chicago and Los Angeles during 1923.) [3]
  • 1920, The magazine Orfeus, representing younger artists, appears from 1920-21.
  • 5 Oct 1920, The Artistic Union of Devětsil (Umělecký svaz Devětsil) is founded at the Union coffee house in Prague under the leadership of the writer Vladislav Vančura, with Karel Teige as its theorist and the painter Adolf Hoffmeister as its secretary. Primitivism and magical realism are prominent in its ideals of proletarian art.
  • January 1921, A small exhibition of the work of Devĕtsil members is held at the U zlatého klasu bookshop in Prague, followed by a poetry matinee at the Revoluční scéna theatre in February.
  • October 1921, Enrico Prampolini organizes in Prague an exhibition of Italian Futurist art, including works by young Futurist painters and 21 items by Umberto Boccioni.
  • December 1921, F. T. Marinetti visits Prague, makes friends with the Devětsil group, and directs a production of Futurist Syntheses at Švanda's Theatre.
  • January-February 1922, The Tvrdošíjní exhibition includes works by Otto Dix and Paul Klee, as well as representatives of Dresden Art Nouveau; it subsequently visits Košice and Brno.
  • June-July 1922, Karel Teige and Jaroslav Seifert (who in 1984 will become the first Czech to win the Nobel Prize for Literature) make contacts with the French avant-garde, including Amédée Ozenfant, Man Ray, Tristan Tzara and Le Corbusier.
  • September 1922, The Yugoslav review Zenit features the work of Devětsil authors, and an exhibition of Picasso ́s work is arranged by Vincenc Kramář at the Mánes Gallery in Prague.
  • December 1922, Publication of the Revoluční sbornik Devětsil emphasizing the importance of international avant-garde movements such as Constructivism, Purism and Dadaism. Several members of the group, including Alois Wachsman, Adolf Hoffmeister, František Muzika and Bedřich Piskač split off to form the ́new group ́ Nová skupina and continue the tradition of magic realism.
  • 1923, Devětsil organizes the Prague stage of a travelling Archipenko exhibition, with an essay published to accompany it, and in November launches the review Disk edited by Seifert, Teige and the architect Jaromír Krejcar; it includes Jindřich Štyrský's manifesto 'Obraz' (Picture) and Teige's 'Malířství a poesie' (Painting and poetry), the manifesto of the picture poem. A Brno branch of the organization is founded, and Teige joins the editorial board of Stavba (Construction), the magazine of the architects association Klub architektů, an important mouthpiece for international Constructivism until 1931.
  • 1923, Prague. The Ukrainian Studio of Plastic Arts, directed by D.Antonovych, opens.
  • March-April 1923, Tvrdošíjní exhibition at the Rudolfinum, featuring Dufy, Ozenfant, and other guest artists.
  • August-September 1923, Czech artists are represented at the International Architectural Exhibition of the Bauhaus in Weimar, with which Devětsil remains in close contact.
  • November-December 1923, Devětsil organizes the Bazar moderního umění (Bazaar of modern art) at the Rudolfinum, featuring many new members including the female artist Toyen and Man Ray as a guest. It travels to Brno the following month as Výstava nového umění (Exhibition of new art).
  • 1924, Miroslav Ponc joins Der Sturm as a painter and composer.
  • January 1924, Exhibition of modern Czech art at the John Levy Gallery, Paris, including works by Emil Filla, Josef Čapek, Václav Špala and Jan Zrzavý.
  • March 1924, Publication of the first issue of Pásmo (Zone) by the Brno Devětsil group; in its third issue it publishes its manifesto ́Naše základna a naše cesta: Konstruktivismus a poetismus’.
  • September 1924, Publication of Vítěslav Nezval's poems Pantomima with illustrations and jacket by Štyrský.
  • January 1925, Fromek founds the Prague publishing house Odeon, which acts a s a platform for Devětsil over the next nine years Štyrský and Toyen travel to Paris for three years, where they exhibit.
  • 1925, The kinetic artist Zdeněk Pešánek completes the first version of his colour piano.
  • October-December 1925, Teige, Seifert and Honzl join a delegation of the Society for Economic and Cultural Rapport with the New Russia to visit Moscow and Leningrad.
  • January 1926, Foundation of Devětsil ́s theatre section, the Osvobozené divadlo, (Liberated Theatre), under the directorship of Jiří Frejka and J. Honza.
  • May-June 1926, Kurt Schwitters performs to great acclaim in two ́grotesque evenings ́ and a reading of his poetry in Prague, followed by an exhibition of 50 of his collages at the Rudolfinum in December.
  • October 1926, Foundation of the Prague Linguistic Circle by Bogatyrev, Mukařovský, Mathesius, Jakobson and Trubetskoy.
  • January 1927, The Prague virtuoso Erwin Schulhoff plays works by Ponc in London, including quartertone and atonal pieces.
  • 1927, Some members of the Osvobozené divadlo leave to found Divadlo Dada under Frejka.
  • 1927, Ilya Ehrenburg and Vladimir Mayakovsky perform in Prague.
  • April 1927, Publication of Fronta in Brno, an anthology edited by František Halas, Vladimír Prusa, Zdeněk Rossmann and Bedřich Václavek. Publication continues despite the dissolution of the Brno branch of Devětsil.
  • October 1927, First issue of Revue Devětsilů (ReD) (-1931) edited by Teige, in which Toyen and Štyrský publish their manifesto Artificialismus.
  • 1927, J. Šíma becomes a founding member of the Parisian group Le Grand Jeu.
  • 1928, Josef Šíma exhibits at the Aventinum Garret, an exhibition space in Prague opened by Otakar Storch-Marien, the owner of the Aventinum publishing house.
  • 1928, The KFU (amateur photographers ́ club) organizes an exhibition of photography oriented towards Constructivism and the Neue Sachlichkeit; Josef Slánský and Josef Dašek both publish manifestoes of the new photography.
  • 1928, Teige publishes the second Poetist manifesto in ReD.
  • 1928, The anthology Devět básníku Devětsil appears.
  • April, 1928. Schulhoff gives a concert in Prague on Pešánek ́s visual piano.
  • 1929, Teige takes part in the Neue Typographie exhibition in Berlin and international exhibition of books and magazines in Dessau. He also publishes the Mezinárodní soudobá architektura compendium to accompany the Neues Bauen exhibition, complemented by a display of Czech architecture, held in Prague in May, and attacks Le Corbusier in Stavba.
  • 1929, Teige was invited by Hannes Mayer, director of the Bauhaus at the time, with whom he shared many radical Functionalist views, to a cycle of lectures about the sociology of architecture, typography and aesthetics.
  • 1929, Jindřich Honzl leaves the Osvobozené divadlo, which becomes a revue theatre presenting the duo Voskovec and Werich.
  • 18 Oct 1929, Teige is elected chairman of the newly-formed Levá fronta (Left front), a group of artists and intellectuals which assumes some of Devětsil ́s functions.
  • 1930, Pešánek installs his lumino-dynamic sculpture at the building of the Edison Power Station in Jeruzalemská Street, Prague, and delivers the lecture ́From Impressionism to Kineticism ́ in Hamburg at a congress on psychological aesthetics.
  • 1930, Teige publishes Moderni architektura v Československu and Svět, který voní, the first historical appraisal of Dadaism.
  • 1930, Nezval founds the periodical Zvěrokruh (Zodiac), anticipating the merging of Poetism with Surrealism, and in its second (and final) issue publishes André Breton ́s Surrealist manifesto.
  • November 1930, Jan Tschichold organizes a travelling exhibition of posters, Nový plakat.
  • In 1930, a German graduate of the Bauhaus Werner Feist settled in Prague for a time.
  • 1931, Teige devotes himself chiefly to the sociology of architecture.
  • 1931, Foundation of Linie, the magazine of the eponymous group of artists and authors including Karel Valter, Ada Novák and Josef Bartuška.
  • October 1932, Opening of Poesie 1932, an international survey of Surrealism and related movements in Prague, including works by Arp, Dalí, Giacometti, de Chirico, Klee and Miró, alongside Czechoslovak artists including Toyen, Štyrský, Wachsman, Hoffmeister and Hana Wichterlová.
  • 1933, Nezval and Jindřich Honzl establish personal contact with Breton and other Paris Surrealists, leading to the publication of a letter of 10 May from Nezval to Breton emphasizing the ideological similarities between Devětsil and Parisian Surrealism.
  • 1933, The Czechoslovak ballet presents Miroslav Ponc's Three Movements for Ballet during the World ́s Fair in Chicago, initiating a successful American tour.
  • 21 Mar 1934, Foundation of the Surrealistická skupina in Prague, with the issuing of a manifesto, Surrealismus v ČSR, signed by Nezval, the poet Konstantin Biebl, Bohuslav Brouk, and a number of other poets, composers and artists. Teige withdraws because of a rift with Štyrský, but later joins the group.
  • 1935, The Surrealists hold their first exhibition in Prague, including works by Štyrský, Toyen and the sculptor Vincenc Makovský, with an introduction by Nezval and Teige.
  • 1935, Honzl founds the Nové divadlo where he and Štyrský present Surrealist productions, including premieres of plays by Breton and Louis Aragon.
  • March 1935, Breton and Paul Eluard in Prague to meet the Czech Surrealists; Breton's Nadia is subsequently published in Nezval's translation.
  • November 1935, Joan Miró in Prague for the International Exhibition I at which 21 of his works are displayed.
  • 1936, The first and only issue of Surrealismus is published under the editorship of Nezval.
  • 1936, Štyrský and Toyen take part in an international Surrealist exhibition in London at the Burlington Arcade.
  • 1936, Jan Mukařovský contributes to the Surrealists' volume Ani labut ani luna (Neither swan nor moon) commemorating the centenary of the death of the Romantic poet and forerunner of Surrealism Karel Hynek Mácha.
  • May 1937, Opening of E.F. Burian's exhibition of the Czechoslovak avant-garde in Prague combining works by the Devětsil generation with those of young artists who had exhibited at Burian ́s D37 theatre and later formed the basis of Skupina 42.
  • 1937, Zdeněk Pešánek ́s kinetic and light sculptures are shown in the Czechoslovak pavilion of the Exposition universelle in Paris.
  • 1937, Nezval publishes his poem Absolutní hrobař (The absolute grave-digger) with his own decalcomania.
  • 1937, Štyrský and Toyen participate in the Tokyo Surrealist exhibition.
Photography
  • 1925, The Brno branch of Devětsil invites Moholy-Nagy to lecture on painting, photography and film.
  • 1926, Nezval’s alphabet poems Abeceda are published with designs by Teige featuring photographs of the choreographyof Milca Mayerová.
  • 1931, Štyrský starts to publish the series of books Edice 69, opening with his illustrated edition of Nezval ́s Sexualní nocturno; he completes the series in 1933 with his series of ten photomontages Emilie přichazi ke mně ve snu (Emilie comes to me in a dream) with an epilogue by the psychoanalyst Bohuslav Brouk.
  • November 1931, Štyrský and Toyen exhibition marks the transition from Artificialism to Surrealism.
  • 1932, Linie organizes an exhibition of new photography in České Budějovice, featuring photographs, photomontages and photograms by 20 artists including Josef Sudek, Adolf Schneeberger and Josef Šroubek.
  • 1933, Fotolinie, a branch of Linie, is founded, and continues to organize photographic exhibitions until the late 1930s.
  • 1933, The Levá fronta presents Social Photography, an exhibition in Prague and Brno including the work of French and Russian photographers as ell as Czechs such as the newly-formed Brno Photogroup of Five (f5), which makes its debut there.

Publications[edit]

Magazines
Almanacs
Manifestos
Anthologies

Resources[edit]

Literature[edit]

Catalogues
  • Tschechische Avantgarde 1922-1940. Reflexe europäischer Kunst und Fotographie in der Buchgestaltung, ed. Zdenek Primus, Hamburg: Kunstverein, 1990, 207 pp. Catalogue of an exhibition held at the Kunstverein in Hamburg, June 1-July 15, 1990 and the Museum Bochum, Dec. 15, 1990-Jan. 27, 1991. (German)
  • Das Bauhaus im Osten: Slowakische und tschechische Avantgarde 1928-1939, ed. Susanne Anna, Ostfildern-Ruit: Hatje Cantz, et al., 1997, 339 pp. [7] TOC, [8]. Review: Long (SDA 2000 EN). (German)
Books
  • Karel Honzík, Ze života avantgardy: zážitky architektovy, Prague: Československý spisovatel, 1963, 240 pp. Review: Závodský (1964). (Czech)
  • Alfred French, The Poets of Prague: Czech Poetry Between the Wars, Oxford University Press, 1969, 129 pp. (English)
  • Vladimir Müller, Der Poetismus: das Programm und die Hauptverfahren der tschechischen literarischen Avantgarde der Zwanziger Jahre, Munich: Sagner, 1978, 223 pp. (German)
  • Vladimír Birgus, Česká fotografická avantgarda 1918–1948, Prague: Kant, 1999. (Czech)
    • Vladimír Birgus, Tschechische Avantgarde - Fotografie 1918-1948, Stuttgart: Arnoldsche, 1999. (German)
    • Vladimír Birgus, Czech Photographic Avant-Garde, 1918-1948, MIT Press, 2002, 311 pp. [9]
  • Jaroslav Anděl, Nová vize (Avantgardní architektura v avantgardní fotografii: Československo 1918-1938), Bratislava: Slovart, 2005. (Czech)
  • Danuše Kšicová, Od moderny k avantgardě. Rusko-české paralely, Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2007, 467+48 pp. Review: Krystynkova (Universitas 2011). (Czech)
  • Jana Horáková, Robot jako robot, Prague: KLP, 2010, 238 pp. [10] (Czech)
  • Josef Vojvodík, Jan Wiendl (eds.), Heslář české avantgardy. Estetické koncepty a proměny uměleckých postupů v letech 1908-1958, Prague: Univerzita Karlova & Togga, 2011, 477 pp. Review. (Czech)
    • A Glossary of Catchwords of the Czech Avant-Garde: Conceptions of Aesthetics and the Changing Faces of Art 1908-1958, Prague: Togga, 2012, 511 pp. [11] (English)
  • Jeanette Fabian, Poetismus. Ästhetische Theorie und künstlerische Praxis der tschechischen Avantgarde, Munich: Sagner, 2013. [12] (German)
  • Thomas G. Winner, The Czech Avant-Garde Literary Movement Between the Two World Wars, eds. Ondřej Sládek and Michael Heim, Peter Lang, 2015, 200 pp. (English)
  • Markéta Svobodová, Bauhaus a Československo 1919-1938: studenti, koncepty, kontakty / The Bauhaus and Czechoslovakia 1919-1938: Students, Concepts, Contacts, Prague: Kant, 2016, 255 pp. [13] (Czech)/(English)
  • Marta Filipová, Modernity, History, and Politics in Czech Art, Routledge, 2019. (English)
Essays
Dissertations

Light-music synthesis[edit]

  • Zdeněk Pěšánek's colour piano (1922–28).
  • Zehn Themen (1919) by Erwin Schulhoff and Otto Griebel. Ten water-colour lithographs accompanied by ten Schulhoff's compositions. The work was published at the cost of the authors by Rudolf Kraemer in Dresden in fifteen numbered and autographed copies. The musical folios are published as facsimile and represent ten simply worked musical ideas. The graphic folios, which appeared as responses to the musical folios represent ten abstract compositions in which two graphic elements-circle and broken lines-and colours, were exploited. The relation of both components was historically conditioned by the features of contemporary orientation: musical constructivism and abstraction in visual art. The study of the changeability of both the components within the framework of the cycle discovered (the finer bonds of assimilation in the cyclic, both muslical and visual, concept. The entire work, however, remained a project on the level of the correspondence: picture and musical "texts". It could be performed with the present technlique, for example, with the aid of slides and musical interpretation.
  • Arnošt Hošek
  • Miroslav Ponc
Literature

Experimental film, avant-garde film[edit]

  • Alexandr Hackenschmied
    • Bezúčelná procházka (Aimless Walk, 1930). First true Czech avant-garde film turns away from a purely celebratory approach to the city. The camera follows a detached protagonist on his wanderings, as his highly subjective journey becomes a fragmented visualization of urban landscapes.
    • Na pražském hrade (The Prague Castle, 1931). Film sketch of the Prague Castle and its most outstanding landmark - the St Vitus Cathedral. The effect of the pictorial form of the film is enhanced by the music of Frantisek Bartos.
  • Svatopluk Inneman, Praha v záři světel (Prague at Night, 1928). A promotional film commissioned by a Prague electricity company. The film captures the Czech metropolis in both an exuberant state of nocturnal activity and heightened architectural grandeur, all possible thanks to the modern wonder of electricity.
  • Otakar Vávra
    • Světlo proniká tmou (Light Penetrates the Dark, 1930). Abstract composition inspired by a light sculpture created by the architect Zdeněk Pešánek.
    • Žijeme v Praze (We Live in Prague, 1934). Film essay from the streets of Prague.
    • Listopad (November, 1935). Two lovers, after a couple of years, meet by chance again.
  • Jan Kučera, Burleska (Burlesque, 1932).
  • Čeněk Zahradníček
    • Ruce v úterý (Hands on Tuesday, 1935, b&w, 300 m, silent version, Czech captions). The motions of the hands symbolize the course of everyday.
    • Máj (May, 1936), with E.F. Burian.
  • Irena and Karel Dodal, The Play of Bubbles (Fantasie erotique) (1936), advertisement.
  • Martin Frič, Černobílá rapsodie (1936).
  • Elmar Klos, Silnice zpivá (The Highway Sings, 1937, b&w, 4 min, 101 m, Czech version). Produced by FAB Zlin. Film advertisement for Bata tyres makes full use of special effects. [27]
  • Jaroslav Mackerle, animated film.
  • Jiří Lehovec
    • Divotvorné oko (The Thaumaturgic Eye, 1939). The most common things around us seen in an unusual way--through the eye of the film camera.
    • Rytmus (Rhythm, 1941). An attempt at visual representation of music.
  • Kinoautomat for Czech pavilion at Expo '67 in Montreal by Radúz Činčera with directors Jan Roháč and Vladimír Svitáček, scenographer Josef Svoboda, and Jaroslav Frič and Bohumil Mika. Back then, it was billed as "the world's first interactive movie." Everyone in the audience had a red and a green button in front of them and the results of voting were displayed around the screen. The movie itself was a dark comedy about a man, Mr. Novak, who believes he was responsible for his apartment building burning down, and is structured as a series of flashbacks leading up to the fire. After each scene the film would stop and a live performer would walk onto the stage and ask the audience to vote. Immediately, as if by magic, the voted scene was played.
  • Dušan Marek, emmigrated from CZ in 1948 for Australia and New Zealand, filmed in 1950s-70s.
  • Petr Skala, since the late 1960s.
  • Amateur film in the 1980s: Ivan Tatíček, Pavel Dražan, Bulšitfilm collective.
Events
  • Avant-garde + Abstraction, Rudolfinum Gallery, Prague, 2004. [28]
Literature
Resources

Performance art[edit]

Milan Knížák [30], Jiří Valoch [31],Ladislav Novák

Events
  • Fluxus concerts in Prague in 1966 [32]
Literature
Anthologies
  • České akční umění: Filmy a videa, 1956–1989. Soubor filmů a videí z let 1956–1989, eds. Pavlína Morganová, Terezie Nekvindová and Sláva Sobotovičová, Prague: VVP AVU, 2015, 3h14m. DVD anthology. [33]
Books
  • Igor Zhoř, Radek Horáček, Vladimír Havlík, Akční tvorba, Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého, 1991, 84 pp. Summary. University textbook. (Czech)
  • Pavlína Morganová, Akční umění, Olomouc: Votobia, 1999; 2nd ed., exp., Olomouc: J. Vacl, 2009. (Czech)
  • Barbora Klímová, Replaced, afterw. Tomáš Pospiszyl, Brno: self-published, 2006, 77 pp. Collection of new interviews with performance artists of the 1970s and 80s. (Czech)/(English)
  • Dokumentace umění, eds. Jan Krtička and Jan Prošek, Ústí nad Labem: Univerzita J. E. Purkyně, 2013, 133 pp. Proceedings from the conference held on 5 Dec 2012. With texts by Hana Buddeus, Vladimír Havlík, Jiří Kovanda, Jan Mlčoch, Tomáš Pospiszyl, Tomáš Ruller, and Miloš Šejn. (Czech)
  • Pavlína Morganová, Procházka akční Prahou. Akce, performance, happeningy 1949–1989, Prague: VVP AVU (Dokumenty), 2014. [34] (Czech)
  • Pavlína Morganová, Czech Action Art: Happenings, Actions, Events, Land Art, Body Art and Performance Art Behind the Iron Curtain, trans. Daniel Morgan, Prague: Karolinum, 2015, 288 pp. [35]. Reviews: Tomic (CritCom 2014), Kemp-Welch (Umění/Art). (English)
  • Vladimír Havlík (ed.), Akce a reakce: performativní aspekty v současném umění a umělecké výchově, Olomouc: Univerzita Palackého v Olomouci, 2015, 225 pp. (Czech)
  • Alena Rybníčková, Radek Chlup, Martin Pehal, Evelyne Koubková, Happening: mezi záměrem a hrou, Prague: Akademie múzických umění v Praze, 2015, 209 pp. (Czech)
  • Hana Buddeus, Zobrazení bez reprodukce? Fotografie a performance v českém umění sedmdesátých let 20. století, Prague: UMPRUM, 2017. Based on PhD dissertation. [36] [37] (Czech)
  • Alice Koubová, Eliška Kubartová (eds.), Terény performance, Prague: NAMU, 2021, 524 pp. Publisher. Review: Morganová (ArteActa). (Czech)
Catalogues
Journal issues
  • Sešity pro mladou literaturu 4(33): "Happening", Sep 1969. (Czech)
Book chapters, essays
  • Jaroslav Kořán, "Happening včera a dnes", Sešity pro mladou literaturu 1:4, 1966, pp 3-7. (Czech)
  • Jindřich Chalupecký, "Úzkou cestou", Výtvarné umění 16:5, 1966, pp 365-370. (Czech)
  • Jindřich Chalupecký, "Experimentální umění. Happeningy, events, de-koláže", Výtvarná práce 14:9, 12 May 1966, pp 1-7. (Czech)
  • Milan Knizak, "Happenings in Prague", Studio International, Oct 1966, pp 210-211. [41] (English)
  • Miloš Horanský, "Happening a jevištní prostor", Acta scaenographica 7:6, 1966-1967, pp 108-113. (Czech)
  • Pierre Restany, "Prague: Sisyphe sans Kafka serait Promethee", Domus 450, May 1967, pp 50-54. (French)
  • Vladimír Burda, "Fluxus-happening-event", Divadlo 1, 1967, pp 39-44. (Czech)
  • Jindřich Chalupecký, "Art, Insanity and Crime", Arts in Society 5(1): "Happenings and Intermedia", ed. Edward Kamarck, Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Extension, 1968, pp 104-108. [42] (English)
  • Vladimír Burda, "Happening ve smyčce", Výtvarná práce 16:15, 16 Aug 1968, pp 1, 3, 10. (Czech)
  • Vladimír Burda, "Exil & utopie. Osudy pražského happeningu II", Výtvarná práce 16:18, 25 Oct 1968, pp 10-11. (Czech)
  • Vladimír Burda, "Les happenings", Opus International 9, Paris, Dec 1968, pp 51-56. (French)
  • Jindřich Chalupecký, "Happening a spol.", Sešity pro literaturu a diskusy 4:33, Sep 1969, pp 13-16; repr. in Chalupecký, Cestou necestou, 1999, pp 93-108. (Czech)
  • Eugen Brikcius, "Chvála happeningu", Sešity pro literaturu a diskusy 4:33, Sep 1969, pp 25-26. (Czech)
  • Petr Štembera, "Events, Happenings and Land-Art in Czechoslovakia: A Short Information", Revista del Arte 7, Mayaguez: Universidad de Puerto Rico, Dec 1970, pp 35-39; repr., shortened, in Lucy R. Lippard, Six Years: The Dematerialization of the Art Object from 1966 to 1972, New York: Praeger, 1973, pp 169-170; repr. in Vision 2, Oakland, CA: Crown Point Press, Jan 1976, pp 42-43. (English)
  • Jindřich Chalupecký, "Letter from Prague", Studio International, Jun 1971, pp 253, 255-257. (English)
  • Ivan Jirous, "Current Expressions in Contemporary Czech Art", Artscanada 160/161, Oct/Nov 1971, pp 62-65. (English)
  • Petr Rezek, "Setkání s akčními umělci", in Performance, [1977] (samizdat), pp 4-15; repr. in Rezek, Tělo, věc a skutečnost v současném umění, Prague: Jazzpetit, 1982, pp 95-102; repr. in Výtvarné umění 3 (1991), pp 78-80; repr. in České umění 1938-1989, eds. Jiří Ševčík, et al., Prague: Academia, 2001, pp 355-359; repr. in Rezek, Tělo, věc a skutečnost v umění šedesátých a sedmdesátých let, 2nd ed., Prague: Galerie Ztichlá klika, 2010, pp 116-124. (Czech)
  • František Šmejkal, "Návraty k přírodě", in Sborník památce Alberta Kutala, Prague, 1984 (samizdat), pp 20-31; repr. in Výběr zajímavostí z domova i ciziny, Brno, 1987 (samizdat); repr. in Výtvarná kultura 14:3, 1990, pp 15-21. Written 1981. (Czech)
  • Pavlína Morganová, "České akční umění šedesátých let v dobovém tisku", in Akce, slovo, pohyb, prostor. Experimenty v umění šedesátých let, ed. Vít Havránek, Prague: Galerie hl. města Prahy, 1999, pp 54-61. (Czech)
  • Marie Klimešová, "České výtvarné umění druhé poloviny 20. století: alternativa a underground, umění a společnost", in Alternativní kultura. Příběh české společnosti 1945–1989, ed. Josef Alan, Prague: Lidové noviny, 2001, pp 376-419. [43] (Czech)
  • Pavlína Morganová, "Umenie akcie 1965-1989", Profil 3, 2001, pp 6-15. [44] (Czech)
  • Jiří Valoch, "Umění akce, hnutí Aktual, happening", in Dějiny českého výtvarného umění VI/1, eds. Rostislav Švácha and Marie Platovská, Prague: Academia, 2007. (Czech)
  • Tomáš Pospiszyl, "Look Who’s Watching: Photographic Documentation of Happenings and Performances in Czechoslovakia", in 1968-1989: Political Upheaval and Artistic Change, eds. Claire Bishop and Marta Dziewańska, Warsaw: Museum of Modern Art, 2009, pp 74-87. Proceedings from the 2008 conference. (English)
  • Josef Ledvina, "České umění kolem roku 1980 jako pole kulturní produkce", Sešit 9, Prague: VVP AVU, 2010, pp 30-65. (Czech)
  • Pavlína Morganová, "Místa činu, akční umění 60. a 70. let", in Místa počinu: historie výstavních prostorů u nás, ed. Ondřej Horák, Prague: Komunikační prostor Školská 28, 2010, pp 53-62. (Czech)
  • Pavlína Morganová, "Problematika pojmů v českém akčním umění", Opuscula Historiae Artium 60 (2011), pp 30-41. (Czech)
  • Pavlína Morganová, "Možnosti interpretace akčního umění", in Wittlichovi. Sborník žáků k 80. narozeninám Petra Wittlicha, ed. Marie Rakušanová, Prague: Karolinum, 2012, pp 227-249. (Czech)
  • Pavlína Morganová, "Action! Czech Performance Art in the 1960s and 1970s", trans. John Comer, Centropa 14:1, Jan 2014. (English)
  • Tomáš Pospiszyl, "Politika intimity: Československá performance sedmdesátých let a její remaky", in Pospiszyl, Asociativní dějepis umění: poválečné umění napříč generacemi a médii, Prague: tranzit.cz, 2014. (Czech)
  • Hana Buddeus, "Fotografické podmínky happeningu", Sešit 16, Prague: VVP AVU, 2014, pp 18-36. (Czech)
Dissertations

Geometric abstraction, Neo-constructivism, Op art, Kinetic art[edit]

Artists
Literature

Multimedia environments[edit]

  • Theatergraph by E.F.Burian and Miroslav Kouřil. Performance stage with integrated projection surfaces on which films and slides were projected during theater performances, and established a direct visual relationship to the onstage action. This technology was first used in 1936 for Wedekind’s production of Spring’s Awakening, and later for Pushkin’s Eugen Onegin.
  • Laterna magika by Alfréd Radok (film director) and Josef Svoboda (stage designer). First introduced in the Czechoslovak pavilion at the Expo '58 in Brussels, this entity combined ballet, theater, several film projections, and sound background. [...] LM transformed the concept of virtual and physiological time. The medium of virtual time included a real actor with whom the spectator could identify and thus gain a direct paradigm on which to model his own behavior, should his physical body ever find itself in a virtual interactive space. [...] It was a highly synchronized program, coordinated to the last detail, with everyone having his exact spot in a precisely marked space. Later presented at Expo '67 Montreal, Expo '70 Osaka.
  • Emil Radok, director, scriptwriter and producer. Inventor multi-screen show. Brother of Alfréd Radok. [49]
  • Josef Svoboda: Diacran (1958), Polyecran (Expo 1967 Montreal), Polyvision (with Frič, 1967).
  • Jaroslav Frič: Polyvision (with Svoboda, 1967), Kinoautomat (with Činčera, 1968), Spherorama - a slide projector with only a single lens was able to create a 360-degree dome projection (Expo 1970 Osaka), Vertical Cinemascope (Expo 1970 Osaka), Rondovision (1984).
Quotes
  • critic Jiří Padrta in a review of an exhibition of kinetic art described the perceiver as a type, "highly active, open, not only in terms of sight, but also in terms of multiple-sense perception, able to register and emotionally grasp very diverse sensations at the same time." (Jiří Padrta, "Světlo a pohyb" (Light and Motion, review of an exhibition), Výtvarné umění XVI, 1966, nos 6-7, p 327.)
Literature
  • Jan Grossman, "O kombinaci divadla a filmu", in Laterna magika - sborník statí, ed. Bohumil Svoboda, Prague: ČSF - Filmový ústav, 1968, pp 31-97. (Czech)
  • Vít Havránek, "V prostoru", in Akce, slovo, pohyb, prostor. Experimenty v umění šedesátých let, ed. Vít Havránek, Prague: Galerie hl. města Prahy, 1999, pp 178–198. (Czech)
  • Vít Havránek, "Laterna Magika, Polyekran, Kinoautomat", in Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film, Karlsruhe: ZKM, and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003. (English)
  • Michael Bielicky, "Prague: A Place of Illusionists", trans. Sarah Clift, in Future Cinema: The Cinematic Imaginary after Film, eds. Jeffrey Shaw and Peter Weibel, Karlsruhe: ZKM, and Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 2003, 96-101. (English)
  • Magdalena Deverová, Instalace vnitřního prostoru - její počátky v českém umění [Interior Installation - Its beginnings in Czech art], Brno: Masaryk University, 2009. Master's thesis. (Czech)
  • Svatopluk Malý, Vznik, rozvoj a ústup multivizuálních programů. Laterna magika a polyekrany, Prague: Akademie múzických umění, 2010, 110 pp. Publisher. (Czech)
Resources
  • Vit Havranek (ed.), Pioneers of Interactive Czech Films (50s-60s), 2002. DVD with works: Laterna Magika, 1958; Laterna Magica, 1967, Exposition Montréal; Kinoautomat, 1967, Expo Montréal; Diapolyekrán, Stvorení sveta, 1967, Expo Montréal. [50]

Mail art[edit]

Intermedia art, sound art[edit]

Literature
  • Jiří Valoch, Partitury: grafická hudba, fónická poezie, akce, parafráze, interpretace, Prague, 1980. (Czech)
  • Jarmila Doubravová, Hudba a výtvarné umění, Prague, 1982. (Czech)
  • Petr Dorůžka (ed.), Hudba na pomezí, Prague, 1991. (Czech)
  • Michal Rataj (ed.), Zvukem do hlavy, Prague, 2012. (Czech)
  • Helena Musilová, "Fluxus a československá scéna v 60. letech 20. století / Fluxus and the Czechoslovak Art Scene in the 1960s", in Zvuky, kódy, obrazy. Akustický experiment ve vizuálním umění / Sounds, Codes, Images, eds. Jitka Hlaváčková and Miloš Vojtěchovský, Prague: ArtMap, 2021, pp 123-136. [51] (Czech)/(English)

Computer and computer-aided art[edit]

  • Zdeněk Sýkora is considered the first Czechoslovak artist to use computer. In 1964 in collaboration with the mathematician Jaroslav Blažek he began creating the visual computer-aided structures. In 1972 he created his first computer generated line paintings. The results of computations, spatial compositions of alphanumerical symbols were interpreted by the two dimensional shapes manually painted or used as a mosaic tiles at the architectural objects.
  • Miroslav Klivar, painter, graphic artist, poet, curator. Began using computer in 1965 to produce later drawings, and since 1968 he used it for design and graphics. Organised Computer and Art exhibition in Prague, 1968.
  • Lubomír Sochor, computer graphics since 1966.
  • Zdenka Čechová, studied Art and Mathematics. Started using computer in 1972 and used computer generated images at the textile and ceramics design, and book illustrations.
  • Jan Raljich, computer works since 1987.
  • Josef Volvovič, Aleš Svoboda, Stanislav Zippe, Pavel Rudolf, Jan Moučka, Zdenek Frýbl
  • Radomír Leszczynski, painter. Since 1995 he has concentrated on the brushwork realization of "subjacent" work on a computer. Also produces electronic prints.
Works
  • Zdeněk Sýkora, Black-and-White Structure, ceramic mosaic, 530x350cm, 1969. The composition of the pattern was computed with a program on a LGP-30 (German) computer.
  • Zdenka Čechová, Sand Storm, computer drawing, 21 x 28 cm, 1991. This drawing was printed on a dot-matrix printer using the author's program.
Group exhibitions
Events
  • computer arts section of the conference Application of Artificial Intelligence AI'89, Palace of Culture Prague. Discussions led by Rudolf Růžička
Literature
  • Jiří Valoch (ed.), Computer Graphic, Brno: Dům umění města Brna, 1968. 16 pages. Catalogue. (Czech)
  • Zdeněk Sýkora, J Blažek, "Computer-Aided Multi-element, Geometrical Abstract Paintings", Leonardo 3 (1970), p 409.
  • Božena Pilpachová, Počítačová grafika, Prague: Výzkum. ústav výstavby a architektury, 1972, 58 pp. (Czech)
  • L Granát, H Sechovský, Počítačová grafika, Prague: SNTL, 1980. (Czech)
  • Miroslav Klivar, Zdeňka Čechová, Aplikace počítačové grafiky v textilním průmyslu ČSSR, Prague: ÚBOK, 1981. (Czech) [52]
  • Computer Graphics Art. Zdeňka Čechová, Daniel Fischer, Zdeněk Frýbl, Jozef Jankovič, Miroslav Klivar, Jan Moučka, Prague, 1982. Catalogue.
  • Počítačové grafické umění, Prague: Obvodní dum kultury v Prahe 8, 1982. Catalogue. (Czech)
  • Miroslav Klivar, "Počítač v umění a experimentální estetice" Estetika 3 (1986). (Czech)
  • Miroslav Klivar, "České počítačové umění (1)", Chůdové kořeny, Vol 2, No 2, June 2003. (Czech)
  • Miroslav Klivar, "České počítačové umění (2)", Chůdové kořeny, Vol 2, No 3, October 2003. (Czech)

Video art[edit]

  • Woody Vasulka, artist. After producing a pioneering body of tapes in collaboration with Steina Vasulka since 1969 in the USA, he has investigated the narrative, syntactical and metaphorical potential of electronic imaging. Co-founded The Kitchen in 1971.
  • Petr Skala, video artist, film director, screenwriter. In late 1982 began to work systematically with the video technology, which he had not previously regarded as an artistic medium, but only as a tool for preserving his abstract moving images.
  • Radek Pilař, bought video camera and VCR in 1983, then first video experiments. Since 1988 organised exhibitions of video art.
  • Petr Vrána, emigrated to Germany in 1981 where he began working with video; returned to Czechia in c.1990.
  • other artists active in the 1980s: Kateřina Scheuflerová, Pavel Scheufler, Tomáš Kepka, Miro Dopita, Lucie Svobodová, Ivan Tatíček, René Slauka, Tomáš Ruller, a.o.
Initiatives
Exhibitions
Compilations
  • Antologie českého umění videa, 3 vols., ed. Petr Skala, 1996.
Literature
Documentary films

Electroacoustic and experimental music, sound art[edit]

Summary[edit]

"I navzdory diskontinuitě můžeme u současných aktivit v oblasti radioartu vnímat bohatou tradici, pojící současnou tvorbu s různými počiny minulého století – od Burianových voicebandů, konkrétní poezie, produkce Elektronického studia Československého rozhlasu v Plzni v 60. a 70. letech, produkce Experimentálního studia v Bratislavě až po nejmladší pokus o soustavnou (a zejména 'svobodnou') reflexi současného zvukového umění v Audiostudiu Československého rozhlasu v Praze, které působilo – do jisté míry rozporuplně – pouze v letech 1990–1994."

Electroacoustic works, 1960s[edit]

Viliam Bukový, Rozkaz, Hirošima (Command, Hiroshima, 1962); Lida Frajt, Asteroidy (Asteroids, 1967); Miloš Haase, Per aspera ad astra (1969); Atlantis (1969); Jan Hanuš, Pochodeň Prometheova (Torch of Prometheus, 1965); Fragmenty z Prometheie I. (Fragments of Prometheia, 1965); Poselství (Message, 1969); Miroslav Hlaváč, Logogenesis (1968); Astroepos (1969); Angelion (1969); Biochronos (1969); Miloslav Ištván, Ostrov hraček I–V (The Island of Toys, 1968); Caesar (scénická hudba), 1969); Miloslav Kabeláč, Svatovítský zvon (St. Vitus Bell, 1966); [[Jan Kapr, Cifre I, II (1966); Šifry (Ciphers, 1967); Václav Kašlík, Krakatit (to Čapek) (1961); Jan Klusák, O sacrum convivium (1968); Rudolf Komorous, Náhrobek Malevičův (Malevič Gravestone, 1965); Anatomie melancholie (Anathomy of Melancholy, 1966); Čtyři zvuková interludia (Four Sound Interludia, 1966); Petr Kotík, Refraction (1961); Jaroslav Krček, Sonáty slavíčkové (Nightingales Sonatas, 1969); Václav Kučera, Studie pro konkrétní klavír (Studies for Concrete Piano, 1966); Pastorale, 1. část cyklu Kinetický balet (Ballet Kinetic, 1968); Spirála, 2. část cyklu (Spirale, 1968); Labyrint, 3. část cyklu (1968); Invariant (1969); Kinechromie (1969); Emanuel Kuksa, Huprolog č. 1 (1964); Znělka k světovému kongresu (Sign to World Congress, 1965); Karel Kupka, Kontrasty (Contrasts, 1967); Vladimír Lébl, Sen a text (Dream and Text, 1966); Zdeněk Lukáš, Arcecona 68 (1968); Ecce quomodo moritur justus (1969); Jan Málek, Nocturno (Koláž č. 2) (1968); Invence č. 1 'Horror Alenae' (1969); Lukáš Matoušek, Studie I (1968); Studie II (1969); Ladislav Novák, Korespondence pro mgf. pás (Correspondence for tape, 1962); Cizí společnost (A Strenge Society, 1963); Geologie, aneb jak jsme zabíjeli tatínka (Geology, Also How we Killed Our Dad, 1963); Dialogus (1964); Znění pro Pierre Goniera (Sounding for P. G., 1964); Aleatorická láska (Aleatoric Love, 1964); Gute Nacht (1964); Ceterum au (1964); Prostory našich životů (Spaces of Our Lifes, 1966); Na konci není sníh (There is No Snow in the End, 1966) Karel Odstrčil, Konflikt 42 (Conflict 42, 1967); Einstein, 1. část cyklu Kabinet voskových figur (Cabinet of Waxwork Figures, 1968); Dr. Sorge, 2. část cyklu (1968); Mme Curie, 3. část cyklu (1968); Kafka, 4. část cyklu (1969); Toccata II (1969); Gandhí, 5. část cyklu (1969); Arnošt Parsch, Poetica č. 3 (1967); Sonáta (1967); Samsarah (1967); Didaktika č. 1 (1969); Josefu Horákovi (Dedication to J. H., 1969); Transposizioni II (1969); Alois Piňos, Koncert pro orchestr a mg. pás (Concert for Orchestra and Tape, 1966); Ludus floralis (1966); Paradoxy II (Paradoxes, 1966); Ecce homo (1969); Peripetie pro orchestr a mgf. (Peripethy for Orchestra and Tape, 1969) Zdeněk Pololáník, Čtyři zvukové konverzace (Four Sound Conversations, 1965); Královské vraždění (Royal Murders, 1967); Hamlet (1967); Oratio (1969); Oliver Rožek, Maxwellův démon (Maxwell s Demon, 1969); Rudolf Růžička, Elektronia A (1965); Elektronia pro J. Horáka (for J. H., 1965); Elektronia B (1965); Elektronia C (1966); Timbry (1968); Gurges (1969); Deliciae pro cb. a mgf. pás (for Cb. and Tape, 1969) Ladislav Simon]], Dimenze (Dimension, 1964); Tři studie (Three Studies, 1965); Antithese (1965); Antitéze (1966); Missa non sacra (1967); Vladimír Šrámek, Smích, k textu J. Koláře (Laughter, 1962); Metamorfózy VI (Metamorphoses, 1963); Sonet pro Sonet duo (Sonnet for Sonnet duo), 1966); Miloš Štědroň, Utis (Nikdo, 1966); Panychida. Památce B. Pasternaka (Panychide for Memory on B. P., 1968); O sancta Cecilia (1969); Jiří Valoch, Proměna (Transformation, 1968); Aus jedem Satz (1969); Modulace (Modulation, 1969); Zbyněk Vostřák, Váhy světla (Wightiness of Light, 1967); Dvě ohniska, 1. část cyklu Azot (Two Foci 1. part from Cycle Azot, 1969); Jaroslav Wolf, Configurazioni I, II, V (1966).

  • For later works see "Brief list of EA compositions in the Czech Republic in the field of autonomous art creation" at Lenka Dohnalová, "Electro-acoustic music in Czech Republic", 2000, pp 76-85. [57]

Electroacoustic composers active in 1970s[edit]

Josef Adamík, Jiří Bárta, Ivo Bláha, Daniel Brožák, František Emmert, Petr Fiala, Josef Gahér, Jiří Gemrot, Miloš Haase, Jan Hanuš, Miroslav Hlaváč, Karel Horký, Miloslav Ištván, Marta Jiráčková, Ivo Jirásek, Miloslav Kabeláč, Jiří Kollert, Pavel Kopecký, Jaroslav Krček, Václav Kučera, Ivan Kurz, Ivana Loudová, Zdeněk Lukáš, Jan Málek, Vojtěch Mojžíš, Karel Odstrčil, Arnošt Parsch, Mária Petrašovská, Alois Piňos, Jaroslav Pokorný, Rudolf Růžička, Bohuslav Řehoř, Petr Řezníček, Milan Slavický, Pavel Slezák, Jan Slimáček, Miloš Štědroň, Josef Tandler, Radko Tichavský, Vlastimil Vanša, Petr Vavřín, Zbyněk Vostřák, Jan Vrána, Vladimír Werner, Jaroslav Wolf, Štěpán Žilka

Selected composers and theorists[edit]

  • Alois Hába, composer primarily known for his microtonal compositions, especially using the quarter tone scale, though he used others such as sixth-tones and twelfth-tones.
  • Alois Piňos, composer. Patří k zakladatelské generaci české Nové hudby šedesátých let. Na svém kontě má i několik zajímavých prvenství: první česká kompozice kombinující orchestr s magnetofonovým pásem (Koncert pro orchestr a magnetofonový pásek, 1964); první týmové kompozice (1969–1971); první české audiovizuální dílo – ve spolupráci s výtvarníkem Daliborem Chatrným (see 'Audiovisual compositions' section); hudba vytvořená ze zvuků krápníků (Speleofonie, 1976) atp. (see also 'Audiovisual compositions' section)
  • Petr Kotík (see 'Audiovisual compositions' section)
  • Milan Grygar [58] [59] (see 'Audiovisual compositions' section)
  • Miloslav Kabeláč, composer
  • Vladimír Lébl, musicologist
  • Rudolf Růžička, composer
  • Antonín Sychra, musicologist
  • Jaroslav Krček, Raab (1971). Electronic opera / electroacoustic oratorio. [60]
  • Milan Knížák, Broken Music (1979) (Fluxus). "In 1963-64 I used to play records both too slowly and too fast and thus changed the quality of the music, thereby, creating new compositions. In 1965 I started to destroy records: scratch them, punch holes in them, break them. By playing them over and over again (which destroyed the needle and often the record player too) an entirely new music was created - unexpected, nerve-racking and aggressive. Compositions lasting one second or almost infinitely long (as when the needle got stuck in a deep groove and played the same phrase over and over). I developed this system further. I began sticking tape on top of records, painting over them, burning them, cutting them up and gluing different parts of records back together, etc. to achieve the widest possible variety of sounds. A glued joint created a rhythmic element separating contrasting melodic phrases... Since music that results from playing ruined gramophone records cannot be transcribed to notes or to another language (or if so, only with great difficulty), the records themselves may be considered as notations at the same time."
  • V průběhu 70. let vzniklo mimo oficiální půdu v prostředí undergroundu několik hudebních experimetů Milana Knížáka (skupina Aktual) a Pavla Zajíčka s Milanem Hlavsou (skupina DG 307).

Collectives[edit]

  • Group A, Brno, founded in 1967 and headed by A.Piňos
  • QuaX Group, founded in 1967 and headed by P.Kotík
  • Studio of Authors, Brno
  • Q, Brno, graphic arts, later interdisciplinary
  • Prague Group of New Music
  • V 80. letech se v Praze kolem skladatelů Petra Kofroně a Martina Smolky vytvořila skupina Agon Orchestra (*1983, [61]), která dodnes interpretuje původní tvorbu českých a světových autorů.

Events[edit]

  • 18. ledna 1961 byla povolena jednorázová diskuze odborníků o experimentální hudbě v Literárních novinách. Zúčastnili se Jarmil Burghauser, Svatopluk Havelka, Jan Rychlík, Vladimír Šrámek, Václav Trojan, Eduard Herzog, Vladimír Lébl a ing. Antonín Svoboda. Následně byla zřízena komise, která měla posoudit prospěšnost této hudby.
  • First Electronic Music Seminar, Pilsen, 1964
  • Expozice nové hudby, since 1990s, Brno. Annual festival of experimental music.

Centres[edit]

  • Experimental Studio of Czech Radio Pilsen, 1967-94. Miloslav Kabeláč, Karel Odstrčil, Miroslav Hlaváč, Jan Hanuš a Milan Slavický a další. Toto studio však zůstalo uzavřeno pro autory, kteří nedokázali předložit dostatečně socialistické projekty. Ještě v roce 1963 však v mnohatisícovém nákladu vyšla kniha, jejímž hlavním cílem bylo zostudit a zesměšnit všechny experimenty prováděné ve světě.
  • Vyzkumny Ustav Rozhlasu a Televize , Electronic Music Studio Radio Prague, Praha VÚRT
  • Elektronicke Studio Ceskoslovensky Radio Brno and JAMU (Janacek akademie muzickych umeni), Radio Brno. Head: Rudolf Ruzicka. [62]
  • Audiostudio of Czechoslovak Radio Prague, 1990-94

Societies[edit]

Releases[edit]

  • Milan Grygar – Kresba 18 A 17. Supraphon, 1 49 9871, 1976. [63]
  • Milan Knižák – Broken Music, Multhipla Records, n.5, 1979. [64]
  • Jaroslav Krček – Raab. Recommended Records, RR 23, 1986. [65]
  • Various - Czech Electroacoustic Music. Solitaire - K.O. Agency Prague, KO 0004, 1996. [66]
  • Various - Czech Electroacoustic Music 2. Solitaire - K.O. Agency Prague, KO 0005, 1998. [67]
  • Various – Electronic Music: Experimental Studios In Prague, Bratislava, Munich, University Of Illinois, Warsaw, Paris. Creel Pone #39, 2006. [68] download
  • Various – From Czech Electronic Music Studios. Creel Pone #76, 2007. [69] download
  • Various – Ticho Buď. His Voice, 2007. [70]

Literature[edit]

  • Miloš Bláha, Miroslav Mandík, "I. seminář elektronické hudby v ČSSR", Rozhlasová a televizní technika 4, 1964. [71] [72] [73] (Czech)
  • Vladimír Lébl, Elektronická hudba, Prague: Státní hudební vydavatelství, 1966. [74] (Czech)
  • Zdeněk Fencl, "Komponující algoritmus a obsah informace", Kybernetika 3 (1966), Prague, pp 243-258. (Czech)
  • Josef Berg, Alois Piňos, Dějiny hudebního experimentu v Praze a na Moravě [History of Music Experiment in Czechia and Moravia], Sep 1966 ff. Events.
  • Jan Kapr, Konstanty nástin metody osobního výběru zvláštních znaků skladby [Constants, Outline of Personal Method of Specific Signs of Composing Selection], Prague: Panton, 1967, 226 pp. (Czech),(German)
  • Zdeněk Fencl, "Počítač jako hudební nástroj", Hudební věda 5:1 (1968), Prague, pp 101-116. (Czech)
  • "Československo", in International Electronic Music Catalog, ed. Hugh Davies, Paris: Le Groupe de Recherches Musicales de l'O.R.T.F. (GRM), and New York: Independent Electronic Music Center, 1967, pp 24-29, IA. Special issue of Electronic Music Review 2/3, Apr/July 1967. (English),(French)
  • Z. Vostřák, "Kapitoly z hudební poetiky" [Lectures on Music Poetics], Konfrontace 1 (1969), pp. 6–13.
  • J. Kapr, "Teorie naznačování a vychylování" [Theory of Indication and Variation], Hudební rozhledy, 1970, pp 358–365, 417–422.
  • Vladimír Lébl, "Brno Experimenting", Hudební rozhledy 5 (1970), Prague. [75]
  • Jiří Kopřiva, "Samočinný počítač jako pomocník skladatele experimentální hudby", in Deset let práce laboratoře počítacích stroju, Brno: VUT, 1972, pp 116-117. (Czech)
  • Rudolf Růžička, "Samočinné počítače a současné směry v hudbě", in Deset let práce Laboratoře počítacích strojů VUT, Brno, 1972, p 120. (Czech)
  • M. Ištván, "Metoda montáže izolovaných prvků v hudbě", Prague: Panton, 1973. (Czech)
  • Alois Piňos, "Elektroakustické skladby brněnského kompozičního týmu 1968-1974" [76] (Czech)
  • Jiří Hanousek, "O začátcích a konci Brněnského elektronického studia" [77] (Czech)
  • J. Ludvová, Matematické modely v hudební analyse, Prague: Supraphon, 1975.
  • Rudolf Růžička, Využití samočinných počítaču při vzniku umělecký děl se zvláštním zaměřením na hudbu a soudobou kompozici, Brno: JAMU, 1980.
  • Josef Gerbrich, Rudolf Růžička, Jiří Stehlík, "Compositions musicale informatisées en Tchécoslovaquie" in Conference Internationale d' Informatique Musicale 1984, Paris, 1984, pp 97-98. (French)
  • Josef Gerbrich, Rudolf Růžička, Jiří Stehlík, "The computer musical compositions in Czechoslovakia", International Computer Music Conference 1984, Paris, 1984, pp 230-231.
  • Josef Gerbrich, Miloš Štědroň, "Počítače a hudba", in SOFSEM '85, Brno: Ústav výpočetní techniky UJEP, 1985, pp 47-68. (Czech) [78]
  • Jan Jirásek, "Changes in the Semantic Relationships Among Basic Musical Parameters and Their Perspektive in EAM", a lecture given in Graz, Opus musicum, Brno, 1988.
  • Josef Gerbrich, Petr Randula, Rudolf Růžička, "Program pro kompozici a automatickou notaci vážné hudby", in Aplikace umělé inteligence - AI '88, Prague: Ústav pro informační systémy v kultuře, Prague, 1988, pp 289-296. (Czech)
  • Rudolf Růžička, "Perspektivy počítačové umělecké tvorby a jejího společenského uplatnění", Opus musicum 3, 1989, pp IV-VI.
  • Vladimír Lébl, "Brno in Sixties", Opus musicum 6 (1990), Brno.
  • Alois Piňos, "Zum Princip der Latenz in der zeitgenössischen Musik", in Otto Kolleritsch (ed.), Musikalische Gestaltung im Spannungsfeld von Chaos und Ordnung , UE Wien, N. 26823m, 1991, pp 103–113.
  • Rudolf Růžička, "Creative, Pedagogical and Social Perspectives of Electroacoustic and Computer Music Art", "Tvůrčí, pedagogické a spoločenské perspektivy elektroakustického a computerového hudebního umění," IFEM '92 Medzinárodné fórum elektroakustickej hudby. Bratislava-Dolná Krupá. November 1992. [79] (English)/(Czech)
  • Miroslav Kaduch Česká a slovenská elektroakustická hudba 1964-1994. Skladatelé, programátoři, technici, muzikologové, hudební kritici, publicisté. Osobní slovník, Ostrava, 1994; Second Edition: 1996. [80] (Czech)
  • Libor Zajíček, An Oral History of Electroacoustic Music in the Czech and Slovak Republics, Dissertation, San Jose State University, 1995. [81]
  • Libor Zajíček, "The History of Electroacoustic Music in the Czech and Slovak Republics", Leonardo Music Journal 5 (1995), pp 39-48 [82]
  • Kateřina Růžičková, Multimediální umění a jeho projevy na brněnské hudební scéně, Brno: JAMU, 1999. Master's thesis. (Czech)
  • Lenka Dohnalová, "Electro-acoustic music in Czech Republic", Aesthetica 19 (2000).
  • Lenka Dohnalová, Estetické modely evropské elektroakustické hudby a elektroakustická hudba v ČR, Prague: Univerzita Karlova, 1999. (Czech)
  • Michal Rataj, Elektroakustická hudba a vybrané koncepty radioartu, Prague: Kant, 2007. (Czech)
  • Petr Kotík, Viktor Pantůček, Ladislav Kupkovič, Rudolf Komorous, Začátky nové hudby v Praze 1959-64: Ostravské dny 2007, Ostravské centrum nové hudby, Ostrava, 2007, 43 pp. [83]
  • Martin Flašar, "The East of the West: The conditions under which electroacoustic music existed in Czechoslovakia, 1948-1992", EMS08, 2008. Conference paper.
  • Tomáš Raszka, Elektroakustická hudba, její technologie a proces se zaměřením na československou scénu, Brno: Masaryk University, 2010. Bachelor thesis. (Czech)
  • Zvukem do hlavy: Sondy do současné audiokultury, Prague: AMU, 2012. (Czech) [84]
  • Rudolf Růžička (ed.), "Bibliografie o české a slovenské počítačové hudbě".
  • Sylvie Bajgarová, Profil české elektroakustické hudební scény v letech 2000-2020, Brno: Masarykova univerzita, 2021. Master's thesis.
  • Petr Ferenc (ed.), Ukryto v pásech: Vybrané kapitoly z české elektroakustické hudební tvorby do roku 1989, Prague: Národní muzeum, 2022, 196 pp. [85] (Czech)

Audiovisual compositions[edit]

  • Alois Piňos, první české audiovizuální dílo – ve spolupráci s výtvarníkem Daliborem Chatrným vytvořil triptych Statická kompozice (for electronic music and slides, 1969), Mříže (for piano and film, 1969), Geneze (for chamber ensemble and film, 1970), Adoration (composition utilizing pendent plastic objects made to ring in different ways, 1970) - performed at the 2nd exhibition of experimental music at Brno in 1970. The Static Composition is created from sound objects, electronic and concrete, linked with the graphic objects by the relation of close assimilation at the level of abstract elements: point, line, curve. The graphic objects were divided in three groups according to the degree of complexity of the composition. The third, most complex group, corresponds to a musical composition on the ba- sis of interval series. Both components of the work are rationally determined. Their mutual relation may be defined as formal analogy. The Bars are created from a music, using grid-like tone structures-one-way interval series, periodical and symmetrical-and black-and-white film operating with the movement of surface divided by different rasters and with the moltif of a square. Genesis is a composition in five parts sand lasting eight minutes, creatively using the motif of a twirl and broken line and musical-colour, instrumental contrast between vertical and horizontal lines. The analogy of form is expressed by the composition in both contrasting components. The Adoration was created from the material of electronically treated so.und of suspended iringing sheet metal objects. The composition has an epic form in two parts, using the contrast of rather tonal and rather non-tonal surface and rhythmic structures, and has an unusual gracefulness, given by the sipecial character of the material.
  • Petr Kotík. Since his early works, Kotik's compositional method has been based on visually graphic material. Using graphs that were created without direct relation to his music, Kotik has determined all of his musical parameters. While be produced his own graphs in the 1960s, in 1971 Kotik began to use new graphic material which be accidentally discovered at his friend Jan Kucera’s medical lab at Buffalo University. Kucera’s graphs charted the results of experiments on the reaction of the nervous system to alcohol. Kotik used these until 1982, when he developed, with the assistance of Charles Ames, a computer program that produced chance progressions based on Markov's numerical chain process. Kotik applies these computer-generated progressions, like his earlier graphs, to all musical parameters.
  • Milan Grygar, Acoustic Drawings.
  • Olga Karlíková Bird singing scores
  • Man - Creator of Beauty (1976). Realized in the largest pavilion of the Park La Ronde-Gyrotron of Mointreal. The idea and scenario of Jaroslav Frič were realized under his guidance by about fifteen collaborators, experts in audio-visual technique. The electronic and jazz-music was complo,sed by Pavel Hapka. In the pavilion of an unusual shape the visitors travelled through the presentation on an elevated track, whose open carriages imoved at a speed of 4 km/hour overcoming a difference of levels of 50m. The route, which the visitors were following, was 400 m long and contained 3000 m2 of colour and black-and-white photographs and transparencies and 52 small stages. The program was orientated towards the development of culture from the drawing at Lascaux to the Olympic Stadium at Montreal, whose entertainment section was the Gyrotron. The sound system consisted of various. musical sequences and other sonic signal elements. The entire representation expressed itself with the generally understandable pictorial language. This representation continued in four independent sections which demonstrated the progress of civilization until the year 3000 with humour and hyperbolic exaggeration.
Musical-visual realisations, inspired by concrete works of visual art
  • Hommage á Dubuffet, František Chaun (1921), 1971. Symphonic work inspired by three concrete pictures of a French painter and musician. From the musical point of view, lit consists of three ingenious musical characteristics, or rather apho,risitic abbreviations.
  • Orbis pictus, Václav Kučera (1929), 1975. Cycle of madrigals, composed to his own texts, was awarded the first prize at the Berlin Biennale in 1975. Inspired by four pictures: The Rainbow by Václav Špála, Anguish and Fear by Kathe Kollwitz, A Child Dedicated to Pain by Paul Klee, and The Green Violinist by Marc Chagall. From the musical point of view, it is highly expressive; new composition techniques and, be- sides the traditional declamation, also expressive declamatory ele- ments (whispering, shouts, etc.) are used.
  • Windows (Okna), Petr Eben (1929), 1976. Cycle for trumpet and organ was inspired by the windows designed by Marc Chagall for the synagogue at Hadassa and for the cathedral at Metz. From the musical point of view, the colour possibilities of both instruments are exploited on modal basis in connection with the names of the individual parts (Blue Window, Green Window, Red Window, Yellow Window).
Musical graphic art

The works of the painters and graphic artists Richard Brun, Karel Deml, the scores of the poet Karel Adamus, or the works of the writers Jiří Kolář, Ladislav Novak, musician Jaroslav Pokorny, theorist of art Miroslav Klivar, the artist Robert Cyprich and Lado Mlynarčik, have one in common: the effort to express in visual form that which is musical, and to find new musicaltity in visual objects. (A large exhibition of scores, conf,ronting the European and American works orientated in this way, was installed at Brno in 1969). Brun's (1910) "musicalities" and his book-cycle The Graphic Music are inspired by the shapes o!f musical instruments, notation signs, but they also endeavour to penetrate into the musical atmosphere, created by means of implications, symbols, partial imitations. Just as the attractive shapes of musical linstruments can become alive in the curves of female bodies, the rhythm of ranging objects became alive in the performance of the interpreters Due Boemi, an ensemble of the Czech Philharmonic Orchestra. The musical graphic art of Karel Deml also preserves a figurative relation of the visual art towards music, but filt is a relation motivated and expressed in a way different from that of Brun. The sovereignity of refinement of graphic concept (combined techniques), elements of graphic quotations, or the concretes of musical instruments and notation form a fantastic frame of his graphic folios with musical themes, regarded quichotically as "half dream and reality half". While Brun's "musicalities" are images of music and Deml's graphic works are expressions of musical experience, Karel Adamus (1943) poems of score represent an image of musical notation. As 'a type they represent 'music for reading. They were created in 1974-1975, form an only source - a typewriter - and with the aid of only one element - a rest - and in an only style on the basis of horizontal-vertical abstraction of them ,imagined musical motion. The horizontal of the note staves becomes Idenser, thinner, the lines permeate, the verticals - the little columns of rests, remind of the medieval nota quadrata. Some scores exploit even individual letters, in others the picture is expressively broken by the curves of exclamation marks by the faces of discriminative signs. (Doubravová, 1980)

Graphic music

Graphic music in Czechoslovakia was composed by J. J. Wolf, R. Ruzicika, M. Stedron, J. Pokorny, V. Kucera and others. Obviously these experiments are connected with the symplifying tendencies of the present musical notation and with the need of a graphic notation for electronic compositions.
The optic-acoustic drawings of Milan Grygar (1926) and his further activity in the sphere of audio-visual works have originated from another background and they are direoted to other goals. In Czechoslovakia, the work of this graphic artist is probably the most original conception of the music-visual art at all. The author took part in a number of exhibitions, he presented his acoustic drawings, and his electronic scores were realized by the Karkoschka's group in 1973. Grygar's musical graphic cannot be visualized as music for reading, there are no analogies with notations, no forms of musical instruments, etc. In some figures he presents the art of action (the acoustic drawings with recorded sound have been published by the Supraphon Gramophone Company), in others the conceptual art (collage, groundplan scores, architectonic scores). Certain asimnilarity in the sphere of the creation of form or the origin 'of rhythm should not be considered from the point of view of analogy of objects, but analogy of action; the foundation of all arts pulsates with the common effort: to find the expression for motion, a form for the unity of the motional, optic and sonic, a code for non-differentation and non-specialization of human activity in such a way, as experienced in children's games. This "playful principle", however, is equipped with a mature professionality and has the artistically most interesting goal: creation. Grygar's graphic works are monumenital by their simplicity and purposefulness in a peculiar way. Anyone of them may be, but should not be, considered from the point of view of itself alone. They form a part of a current, which had appeared in the author's work around 1965 and lasts until now. In this current, audiovisual orientation has been connected with the activity of touch on the one hand, and with the elements of theatre on the other hand. Grygar co-operated with the musical theorist Vladimir Lebl, and this co-operation gave birth, among others, to the exhibition for the festival of experimental music at Smolenice in 1970. The Black-and-White Counterpoints by J. and J. Kořán of 1971 testify to the audio-visual character of this type of work. Although linspiration lis the foggiest type of the relation music-visual art, it is also most fertile field of the mutual relations of both arts. (Doubravová, 1980)

Literature
  • František Krejčí, "Čití a vnímání", Psychologie, II, Prague, 1904, p 250. (Czech)
  • J. Chalupecký, Hudba barev, Prague, 1904. (Czech)
  • J. Stanislav, L. Kuba, Prague, 1968.
  • Vladimír Lébl, "O meznich druzich hudby", Nove cesty hudby, 1969, II, pp. 216-247. (Czech)
  • M. Klivar, "Nove formy audiovizualniho umeni", Estetika, 1970, 2, pp. 149-154. (Czech)
  • Vladimír Lébl, "M. Grygar", Hudebni rozhledy, 1971, 9; Electronic Music Reports, Utrecht 1971; Jazz Bulletin, 1979, 9.
  • J. Doubravová, "Z rane tvorby E. Schulhoffa", Hudebni rozhledy, 1976, 6, pp. 281-285. (Czech)
  • J. Doubravová, "Music and Visual Art: Their Relation as a Topical Problem of the Contemporary Music in Czechoslovakia", International Review of the Aesthetics and Sociology of Music, 11(2), 1980, pp 219-228.
  • Jiří Zemánek, Milan Grygar, Obraz a zvuk, Prague, 1999. Catalogue.
  • Lenka Pastyříková, "Vizualizace hudby v českém meziválečném výtvarném umění", Umění LII, 2004. (Czech)
  • Alois Piňos, Ivo Medek, Multimedial Scene of Brno, Brno: JAMU, 2005.
  • Jaroslav Bláha, Výtvarné umění a hudba: Tvar prostor a čas I, , 2012, 231 pp. With CD. (Czech) [86]

New media art, Media culture[edit]

1990s
  • Radek Pilař founded a department of electronic animation and multimedia art at FAMU in Prague in 1990.
  • In 1990, when the Fluxus artist, deconstructivist Milan Knížák, was elected as a dean of the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague all the professors of the old regime were removed. In 1991 he set up an atelier of video art with Fluxus star and Paik's student Michael Bielický, fulfilling his iconoclasm against the authorities and the hierachy in both politics and art-history. [87] The department was later renamed to New Media and Bielický led it until 2007: "In 1991 I was called by the Prague's Academy of Art to found and lead a section for new media. Nam June Paik donated quite a large amount of money for the equipment. As well, other (private) people from Germany supported this project. Thanks to the DAAD in Bonn, a longterm instructer for my department was made available for several years. The department is situated in a Cubist influenced villa. The first students reacted very individually in their way of using the new technology. From videotapes to video installations, interactive video sculpters, live video performances to communication art, they use their new techniques in a serious, but detached way."
  • Another provocative, ex-banned performing artist, Tomáš Ruller, received a TV studio at the Technical University in Brno after the revolution and since 1992 ran there a "Video/Performance/Multimedia Studio" of video art and multimedia performance (until 1998): "In 1994, the receipt of a grant enabled us to take the initial steps towards creating a long-term program integrating modern technology and a Multimedia laboratory built in cooperation with Woody Vasulka, pioneer of video and electronic art. Developments include the aquisition of real-time multimedia interactive equipment and links to an academic network and the World Wide Web. Thanks to the support and financial assistance of Silicon Graphics, the VMP studio has been able to upgrade its equipment and increase its number of projects including interactive works and installations. In addition, opportunities to collaborate with other institutions have also been created and an academic metropolis net involving several universities is being developed."
  • Keiko Sei, the head of Video/Performance/Multimedia Studio in Brno 1998-2001.
  • Miloš Vojtěchovský, Silver, Lucie Svobodová, Milan Slavický (composer).
  • technical experts working with the artists: Milan Guštar (has been providing technical support for the works by David Černý, Silver, Federico Diaz, Miloš Vojtěchovský, Michael Bielický and others since 1987), Stanislav Filip (hardware and programming), Dalibor Vlašín (maintained TV equipment at Czech TV), Luděk Skočovský (network and sys admin), Jiří Dostál (sound engineer)
  • experimental filmmakers: Martin Blažíček, Emil Kubiš, Vít Pancíř, Martin Ježek, Martin Čihák, Petr Marek.
  • Orbis Fictus, a new media art exhibition organised by Soros Center for Contemporary Arts in Prague, 1994. Curated by Ludvík Hlaváček and Marta Smolíková.
  • Hi-tech/Art, an annual international exhibition and symposium, organised by Video/Performance/Multimedia Studio in Brno, 1994-97.
  • Dawn of the Magicians?, an exhibition organised by National Gallery in Prague, 1996-97. Curated by Jaroslav Anděl, Miloš Vojtěchovský, Ivona Raimanová.
  • venues: NoD Media Lab, Terminal Bar Prague, LABoratory at CCA (1998-2004).
2000s
Literature

Media theory[edit]

Cities[edit]

Prague, Brno, Cheb, Hradec Králové, Liberec, Olomouc, Opava, Ostrava, Plzeň, Ústí nad Labem, Zlín.


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