Lumír Hladík - The Mirrored Sea

version No. 2

AUTHORSHIP

Equal co-authorship: Lumír Hladík

CLASSIFICATION

Classification: film/videoart -

DATES

Date of creation: 1980

COLLABORATORS AND PARTICIPANTS

Other collaborators: Petr Soukup

TECHNICAL INFORMATION

Duration: 00:07:04
Sound: Silent

EXHIBITIONS, PUBLIC PRESENTATIONS

Audiovisual broadcast (TV, radio): Artyčok TV
Date of broadcast: 18.9.2013
Link: http://artycok.tv/lang/cs-cz/20466/more-v-zrcadle-1980

NOTES AND ADDITIONAL INFORMATION

Notes: This entry describes version No. 2 out of 3 different versions of the work archived at the VVP AVU videoarchive:
version 1. - no sound, no text (included into the DVD Czech Performance Art, Film and Video. 1956-1989, published by VVP AVU in 2015)
version 2. - no sound, with the artist`s texts in the video (curated in 2013 in Window into the VVP AVU archive at Artyčok TV, eds. T. Nekvindová, S. Sobotovičová).
version 3. - added music, with the artist`s texts in the video



Adopted text on the work: I realized that it had been two years since I’d seen the sea. The sea always was, for us Czechoslovakian citizens, a special place. In a geographical sense, the country is landlocked, as well as in a political sense; the sea became a symbol of freedom.

Thus, I decided that a time span of two years was emotionally significant enough to allow me to “not see it (again)”. I asked my friends to drive me (blindfolded), and a large mirror to the Baltic Sea coast in East Germany. Upon our arrival, my friends placed the mirror in an upright position on the beach facing the sea. I was escorted towards the mirror, where I sat down, removed the blindfold and watched the sea’s reflection in the mirror. After an hour of mirror-sea-watching, my friends blindfolded me again and we returned back to Prague.
Source of text: Okno do videoarchivu VVP AVU
Author of text: Lumír Hladík
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