Shapeshift

The main theme of the exhibition Shapeshift by Andrea Uváčiková and Zuzana Bartošová is a discussion of the object, its representation, and remediation. The artefacts created directly for the exhibition in the OFF/FORMAT gallery build on each other and influence each other. The starting points are prints created using the dry-point engraving technique, serigraphic prints, and drawings of objects, in which Andrea Uváčiková explores the possibilities of representing the object in space in a way that suppresses its spatiality. These studies are taken over by Zuzana Bartošová and, by converting them back into three-dimensional form (albeit in a shifted, digitised form), she reconstructs the shapes into basic form objects. She emphasizes the visibility of structures that are naturally created during 3D printing. The tools also determine the size and colour of the individual segments from which the objects are assembled. Although the author enters the same input data, by using up to three different printers, slight differences appear in the individual segments. Another medium represented is photograms and prints, in the „laboratory discovery“ of which the authors used already existing objects – either as matrices for printing or when illuminated on photographic paper. Again, in these approaches, an attempt is made to reconstruct the object, but using two-dimensional media.

The creation of the works is therefore looped within the exhibition project and gives a unified impression of the space. It may even obscure the specific authorial contribution of the artists. However, this stems from similar thinking about the artwork and collaborative debates over the theme and form of the exhibition. Yet they retain legible handwriting in their works. The final form of the exhibition is aesthetically unified by its almost minimalist form and also by the manner of installation, in which Zuzana Bartošová’s works are placed on plinths created directly for the objects.

Both artists have been dealing with the transformation, digitization of matter, and imprint as evidence of the existence of the real world in their work for a long time. Zuzana Bartošová’s previous outputs tested the possibilities of 3D printing and the extreme characteristics of the created artefacts – e.g. the impossibility for the recipient to perceive the artefacts due to the very bright light coming from them or the destruction of the objects concerning the gallery’s attendance (the more visitors came to the exhibition, the more they were destroyed). Andrea Uváčiková took a similar approach in her RE medium project and develops it further in this exhibition. In it, she worked with 3D printing a square, which served both as a matrix and as an object that reacts to its surroundings (the surroundings were subsequently thematized in the form of serigraphy).