December 12, 2020–January 24, 2021
Gossamer Fog presents Antechamber, a new online extension of the gallery and The Alchemist, a physical solo show by Matyáš Chochola.
Antechamber launched with three newly commissioned artistic projects, accessible to view through the Gossamer Fog website:
Cobweaver: Portals to an Enchanted Commons presents itself as a 360 video, sound and accompanying essay, where the viewer navigates between alternate virtual and sonic landscapes. “The format of these works doesn’t allow for a Street View-style navigation and voyeuristic all-angled observation of their frozen inhabitants; what it does is hold space for you both to dwell together…These small works act as spells. Whether we intend it or not, all of what we call Art acts as a spell, rippling outward, and I wield this function intentionally here, for good.”
The Mycological Twist: Ballad to Detritus is a downloadable game where you embody a mycelial structure, expanding your network of fungal filaments as you navigate a primordial amebic space. “A juicy cocktail of humus and moss, maybe? Some earth sludge oozes through the cracks in the ground, a wound left after a small birch came down with a loud klabam. Look left, right, left, always be safe crossing this intersection. Roarrr! As a lighting thunder Eelie the speedy nematode comes rushing through. Always in a hurry that one…”
AUDINT & Anna Engelhardt: Protocols of Immanent Conflicts [Hyperstitional Witnessing] is a collaborative multimedia project which brings together speculations on systems of holographic warfare and research on logistics as a colonial strategy that lies between a dichotomy of military and civilian. Setting itself on the threshold between fiction and reality, this project aims to explore the dynamics of latent warfare and structural violence that invisibly inform the contemporary socio-political order on a global scale. Commissioned as part of DEMO Moving Image Festival.
Antechamber will grow as new projects are added, creating an unbound expansion of the gallery within the digital realm.
Supported by Arts Council England
Matyáš Chochola: The Alchemist
December 12, 2020–January 24, 2021
The Alchemist gestures towards a speculative return to a pre-intellectual era. Despite ongoing scientific progress which has defined the general consensus of human knowledge and understanding of the world, alternative interpretations of reality and its principles of functioning have emerged. It is as if the magnification of the traditional Western rational philosophy, resulting in blind and careless misuse of the natural, material world around us, could only be reconciled by a dramatic turning back.
Mythological figures that wield supernatural powers have throughout history influenced the psyche of populations and societies, now contemporary mythology is enriched with another legend. The story of a powerful alchemist-druid who is one possible answer to a call for help at a time when existing rational convictions are disintegrating slowly but surely. This modern Celt, embodied by the artist himself, is here to throw a line to his peers who are grappling with blind uncertainty. The mage’s final reincarnation is attributed with a blend of tools and knowledge from the urban environment and the primitive power of the elements and supernatural forces, while spells and potions are concocted with a unique integration of technology and mysticism.
Matyáš Chochola is a Czech performer and recipient of the Václav Chad Award (2012) and the 2016 Jindřich Chalupecký Award. Chochola’s multi-layered art is rooted in performance which blurs the lines between shamanic and ritual ceremony and produces artistic artifacts. These items are then utilized in unorthodox site-specific installations which often combine wild, powerful and animalistic qualities with the trash aesthetics of 1990s discos or spiritual ceremonies. He has exhibited in Berlin, Milan and at the prestigious Manifesta Biennial of Contemporary Art in Zurich, among other places.
Curated by Veronika Čechová
Programmed by Jindřich Chalupecký Society
Jindřich Chalupecký Society is a platform for Czech post-revolutionary and contemporary art in an international context. Since 1990, the Society awards the Jindřich Chalupecký Award for visual artists up to the age of 35.
Gossamer Fog is a non profit gallery based in South East London with an experimental curatorial approach that focuses on science, ecology and technology.
