Anna-Marie Berdychová, Samuel Stano – Somnus Solutions
May 18, 2023 — June 8, 2023Industra Art, Brno, Czechia
– photo report on Kuba Paris
The project Somnus Solutions showcases the collaborative work of Anna-Marie Berdychová and Samuel Stano against the backdrop of the gallery's immediate surroundings. Upon entering the exhibition space, visitors find themselves immersed in an enigmatic waiting room, belonging to the fictitious Somnus Solutions agency. The magically dystopian framework is enhanced by a sound component – local radio Ede_M broadcast, with the participation of acoustic composer, producer and audiovisual artist Oliver Torr.
Everything around you begins to dissolve. As your body temperature rises, the walls soften and transform into a gelatinous substance that has absorbed the feverish dreams of countless previous clients. The concrete ceiling and floor ripple like a water surface, making you feel, as always, sick. Everything appears so drained, so weary. Objects contort, the space changes its size, and when the artificial sun seeps through the windows, that never-ending daylight, life and work have no end. Before the rhythm of the descending spiral engulfs you completely, before your limbs, blood, and organs merge into one organic mass, you catch a whiff of lye – but you will never learn its role here. The tin glimmers of the agency logo flash before your eyes one last time, those you've been seeing regularly now, as does the sound of the local broadcast emanating from every crack and crevice. Whether you like it or not, it slowly seeps into your brain. Then the horizon finally starts to fade, the image becomes indistinguishable, the human language sounds like brown noise, and metal spikes are warm once again. Rest is within reach.
The exhibition project Somnus Solutions at the INDUSTRA ART Gallery presents the collaborative habitat of Anna-Marie Berdychová and Samuel Stano, students of the Painting 3 studio run by Josef Bolf and Jakub Hošek at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague. Although both artists also work individually, the production of a set-design for a film by Marie Topolová initiated their first ever collaborative work, which they decided to continue freely outside the film field. Since 2021, they have been working on exhibition projects as a duo. This circumstance sheds light on three main aspects of their work: the first is the above-mentioned construction of different environments (simulations), the second is a departure from painting in the traditional sense, and the third is a particular craftsmanship. As the third volume of the EP Sternberg Press Post-craft edition notes, contemporary artists are increasingly exploring the materiality of ceramics, textiles, metal or wood and techniques and how not/appropriately to treat them. This not only leads to an international revival of crafts, but also to their reinterpretation (in this case, magical-dystopian) and preservation in ever-changing times.
The material-rich and detailed works of Anna-Marie and Samuel are the outcome of experimentation with the properties of materials and DYI techniques, which then result in objects on the intersection of sculpture, installation and painting. These take on a critical potential towards contemporary society and its inherent power relations, given that sleep, as Jonathan Crary observes, is the last obstacle to unhindered productivity, a 24/7 wakefulness.1 Through paranoid fabulation, we thus find ourselves, along with the artists, in the unspecified waiting room of the Somnus Solutions agency; a technically dehumanised system that thrives through the offer of artificial sleep. The most typical conference furniture slowly melts away under the weight of folkloric mystique, while behind a semi-transparent cubicle of agar bioplastic an ambiguous experience not far removed from a drug-induced hallucination unfolds – a motor-driven life-size sculpture beckons visitors to closer inspection with its hypnotically repetitive movement. In this way, the elevated platform of an industrial building becomes a liminal space through which one can "noclip"2 out of reality to the sound of a local radio. After all, any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic from a certain point on.3
1 Jonathan Crary, 24/7: Late Capitalism and the End of Sleep, Rest in Unrest: the Biopolitics of Sleep and Wakefulness, Brno 2021, pp. 44-70.
2 The noclip mode is a term from the gaming world. It is a cheat that allows players to navigate through normally impenetrable objects such as walls, ceilings or floors by turning off clipping.
3 Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of The Future, London 1962.
Photos by Anna-Marie Berdychová.
With financial support of the Creative Europe, Avast Foundation, The City Brno and Ministry of Culture Czech Republic.
