Audire Fluctus

Audire Fluctus is a transmedial sculpture at the intersection of a light object and an interactive data-totem. Its essence lies in the connection between the physical world and the invisible electromagnetic fields that surround and continuously affect us. The work monitors the technological activity of its environment and visualizes electromagnetic radiation generated by electrical grids, communication devices, and systems operating on electrical current. Electromagnetic fields, which we usually cannot perceive directly, are translated into light and color patterns through Audire Fluctus. The sculpture thus raises the question of how we perceive and interpret a reality that is partially invisible yet profoundly present.

The key element of the work is a medium called Spektraflux, a liquid with an anisotropic structure that can change the refractive index of light depending on electromagnetic activity. Its behavior produces unique color textures that reflect the intensity and dynamics of invisible fields, shifting to black and white marble patterns when at rest and changing to shades of the rainbow spectrum when mechanically moved. This shifting visual effect highlights the nature of constant movement and change inherent in both the electromagnetic waves themselves and the technological infrastructure that generates them.

The work functions not only as a visual object but as an active element that adapts to its surroundings. Situated in the piazzetta of the National Theatre, it responds to the presence of numerous electromagnetic devices in the area, becoming a sensor that makes visible the presence of invisible forces. However, this phenomenon is not confined to the physical world alone – it manifests the continuous exchange of data, signals, and energy that defines our environment.

Here, the concept of the piece intertwines with the philosophy of Karen Michelle Barad, particularly her theory of agential realism, where objects, phenomena, and observers are not separate but co-create each other within a continuous process of interaction. In the context of Audire Fluctus, it is not merely a depiction of invisible technology but an encounter in which the sculpture, the viewer, and the electromagnetic field enter into a dynamic process of mutual influence. Perception here is not confined to passive observation but becomes an active co-creator of the phenomenon – every step the viewer takes, every shift in the electromagnetic field is a co-creative act, in which reality is continually reshaped.

Thus, Audire Fluctus does not merely reveal a hidden layer of our technological environment but redefines the very concept of interaction between the world, the viewer, and the object into a dynamic act where the boundary between subject and object is not pre-determined but is continuously born and dissolved depending on the act of observation and participation.

…dquele que é (des)objeto II

“…dquele que é (des)objeto II,” held at the Fundação Leal Rios in Lisbon (September 27, 2024 – February 22, 2025), offers an in-depth exploration of the concept of the object in contemporary art. Under the curatorial direction of Miguel Leal Rios, visitors are invited to engage with works by 21 artists, each examining the boundaries and essence of objects through deconstructed and transformed forms.

The central theme of the exhibition is the relationship between an object, its form, and its meaning. Inspired by Jacques Derrida's theories of deconstruction and Michael Fried's ideas on objecthood, the pieces challenge conventional understandings of objects, highlighting their ambivalence between weight and lightness, two- and three-dimensionality, and tactile human interaction. The exhibition focuses on objects that encourage reflection on their inner life and the new identities revealed through artistic transformation.

Otevřený Horizont

The exhibition explores visual art’s updated relationship to space and the landscape. It works with three subsets of a conceptual whole. Two of these, founded on the contemporary painting and image, look at multiple approaches to the landscape and the diversity of interpretational strategies ranging from traditional plein-air painting and the construction of space to landscapes of memory and fictional, imaginary, or urban landscapes. The third subset consists of audiovisual installations focused on the inner movement of landscape structures, on an exploration of their processual tectonics, and on a performative presence “within a place” at a “specific time.”
OPEN HORIZON looks at the sustainability
of the relationship to a genre that is undergoing radical change – landscape painting in the broader sense of the word. In a broader sense, meaning from the perspective of formal approaches and stylistic means, but also in terms of inner engagement and physical, technical, and technical involvement in the situation of a place, time, and space.

Mutatio Superstratum

Mutatio Superstratum Mutatio Superstratum is a transmedial sculpture that, through continuous monitoring of electromagnetic fields, reveals invisible flows connecting virtual infrastructure with human perception. The work is not merely a visualization of data; it is a fluid, organic experience where virtual forces and human senses form a new hybrid space. Electromagnetic waves generated by nearby technologies are captured and transformed through the sculpture, materializing what would otherwise remain beyond ordinary perception. Mutatio Superstratum thus explores the liminal boundaries between the visible and the latent, between reality and its virtual extensions.

The fundamental medium of the work is Spektraflux, a substance whose anisotropic structure responds to electromagnetic impulses by altering the refractive index of light and the color patterns of the sculpture. This process of color transformation is not just a visual phenomenon but an expression of metamorphosis, where virtual flows shape the physical presence of the piece. The dynamics of the captured signals generate ever-changing visual patterns that provoke questions about the nature of space as we perceive it: is space a stable entity, or is it continuously reshaped by unseen virtual forces?

This performative aspect of the work invites deeper questions about subjectivity and ontology within the dissolving boundary between the physical and virtual worlds. The viewer becomes part of this process—their own technological devices, which generate electromagnetic waves, interact with the piece and influence its transformation. The interaction between the viewer, the sculpture, and the environment thus reveals more than just an aesthetic experience; it exposes the complex network of relationships and mutual influences between the body, technology, and space, where every movement, every signal, is also a participation in the creation of virtual reality.

The philosophical depth of Mutatio Superstratum touches upon concepts from experimental thought, as developed by Reza Negarestani, whose philosophical speculations on cybernetic systems and virtual structures offer a new way of thinking about the relationship between technology and ontology. Negarestani views technological systems not merely as tools but as active, autonomous forces reshaping the very foundations of reality and subjectivity. In this spirit, Mutatio Superstratum is not just a reflection on the technological environment but an experiment that suggests reality is not fixed, but continuously renegotiated through interactions between virtual and physical layers.

The installation at the Regional Gallery in Liberec, therefore, does not function as a closed aesthetic object, but as a process where the boundaries between the viewer, technology, and space are constantly shifting. Mutatio Superstratum forces us to question whether we are mere passive receivers of virtual signals or whether we are becoming part of a broader network that transcends traditional understandings of subject and object. The sculpture not only makes the invisible visible but disrupts our conception of a stable reality—the world we live in is an endless series of mutations and constant rewriting, where virtual layers define both our everyday experiences and the very ontological foundations of existence.

Magana Mutatio / Aurei Montis

Neither in visuality nor in materiality does the work of Brůh connect with the crises of the contemporary human world, at least not directly. He steps out of them and explores other limits. In his installation for the Ostrava Plato as part of this year's Jindřich Chalupecký Prize, he mixes several of his long-term practices (Magna Mutatio, Inter Solaris, and Aurei Montis, respectively) into one intertwined configuration. This time he uses his methods to explore the geologically specific site of Zlaté Vrch in northern Bohemia. In the installation, he primarily works with phenomena not normally visible to the eye. The first part of the individual aluminium structures with built-in transparent displays fed by an exposed base plate with visible cables - information flows - make normally sight-obscured elements visible. The displays then flow a visual intermediate state, or a state where we cannot clearly tell what it is - barely identifiable maps. The automated projections of maps of discharges, seizures, nodes, loops, taken and recorded by machines, correspond to liminal natural place-defined processes that are only remotely, if at all, historically contingently related to humans. Together with other hypertechnological objects bound to space only by neodymium magnets - an invisible force - these phenomena insert into the environment the question not why, but how. Or rather, the question that we traditionally ask when human thinking or seeing does not reach a state of understanding, comprehension, even after the artistic-technological strategy is explained by the creator or curator. Measuring, mapping and then putting into projection - the tactic of Brůh - draws attention to the physical record, memory, of everyday realities located outside the human body. While the record is empirically imaginable to humans in source code, in its complexity it is visually, and therefore by definition emotionally, unperceivable - only simulated - generative. 

Neither visually nor materially does Brůh's work connect with the crises of the contemporary human world, at least not directly. He steps out of them and explores other boundaries. In his installation for Ostrava's Plato as part of this year's Jindřich Chalupecký Prize, he mixes several of his long-term practices (Magna Mutatio, Inter Solaris, and Aurei Montis, respectively) into one intertwined configuration. This time, he is using his methods to explore the geologically specific site of Zlatý vrch in northern Bohemia. In the installation he works mainly with phenomena that are not normally visible to the eye. The first part of the individual aluminium structures with built-in transparent displays fed from the exposed base plate by visible cables - information flows - makes visible elements not normally visible to the eye. A visual interstate, or a state of not being able to clearly tell what is going on - barely identifiable maps - then flows through the displays. The automated projections of maps of discharges, seizures, knots, loops, made and recorded by machines, correspond to liminal natural locally defined processes that are historically only remotely, if at all, contingently associated with humans. Together with other hypertechnological objects bound to space only by neodymium magnets - an invisible force - these phenomena insert into the environment the question not why, but how. Or rather, the question we traditionally ask when human thinking or seeing fails to reach a state of understanding, of comprehension, even after the artistic-technological strategy is explained by the creator or curator. Measuring, mapping and then putting into projection - the tactic of God - draws attention to the physical record, memory, everyday reality located outside the human body. While this record is empirically imaginable to humans in source code, in its complexity it is visually, and therefore by definition emotionally, ungraspable - only simulated - generative. zahlédnout data, it points to unrecognized or man-made dangers if it is not looking properly. The constellation of objects and screens is complemented by suspended aluminium discs, in the centres of which are anchored geological findings that do not seem to be found in nature in this form. They have also undergone a technological, also natural transformation, but more of an artistic manipulation through a kinetic mechanism (the algorithm was set according to the natural conditions of the site). By setting up a gigantic Fresnel lens, which curled and concentrated the direction of the sun's ray into the artist's chosen rock, he made a new memory record of the given natural conditions at a given time. The works - after a certain degree of revelation by sight - fluctuate in a kind of in-between spaces; the universe, the Earth - nature, man, technology. They do not establish clear boundaries, but overlapping variations, combinatorial transitions of views in time and place. 

The distance of observation from space, the expanded perspective of vision that is transformed when observed over time, removes human individuals, communities, societies from the position of initiators and subsequent controllers of all events. "Showing" and "looking back" in the gallery, however, then draws the human back in as a reader. The nature of such a reader in the complex fraction approaches, or has even entered, a temporal phase of powerlessness to intervene effectively. Man, society seems to be a dream that is learning to come to terms with its impending end, which Brůha points out by observing the activity of non-human scales. The sensory experience of such changes in time is an essential element of the tendency in contemporary global art - art in the Anthropocene - to turn to other times - geological time, of which human time is merely a partial interval. Thanks to the human aspect (manipulation of the human eye by 

technology) in Brůh's art we find not only the dualistic principle of society against nature, but a more extended, though temporary, new synthesis. Through his precise use of technology, Brůha makes it a horizontal link between man and nature. By gazing from orbit at the Earth, Brůha is able to condensedly allow the human senses to at least glimpse the "hyperobject" which, according to Timothy Morton, is centerless and characterized by omnipresence. It moves beyond the human scale and is definable only by its manifestations, imprints in objects, among which Morton includes the human being who, through his activity, created the hyperobject. Bruha's work is not only an imprint, but a deliberate concentration that causes perception to change as it passes between elements in the installation. The viewer, through his gaze and looking back at the elements in the work, recognizes his position on the horizontal structure with all the objects, which are characterized by an inevitable finality compared to the hyperobject, which does not have its time of demise in the tangible time of humans. 

My work is based on Jan Zálešák's text: Apocalypse Me, Timothy Morton's books Hyperobjects and from a personal interview with Kryštof Brůha.

Author of the critical text Ruda Minka

Magna Mutatio / Yamaneko

Magna Mutatio / Yamaneko explores a tropical storm that occurred in the fall of 2022 from 13:00 on 10 November to 19:00 UTC+1 on 14 November, approximately 276 NM north of the coral atoll of Wake in the North Pacific Ocean. It was a tropical cyclone - an atmospheric formation in the form of a large-scale vortex with a characteristic eye in the centre - a so-called hurricane. 

Unlike previous works, Yamaneko focuses on immediate, current events. The tropical cyclone is a phenomenon that is quite unique in place and time. In the case of Yamaneko, it was less than five days. It is not a change of landscape, a development of a body of water, a transformation of the natural world. It is a phenomenon without human input. But it remains a driving force in the context of what is observed. At one point, due to the low air pressure and the heat released from the condensing water vapour, an enormous concentration of energy begins to form.

Although the causes of the storms are de facto predictable in our observations, their course is not. 

The potential of a storm, an electro-static phenomenon, a relative meteorological anomaly, is not of long duration; it exhausts itself, calms down, and gradually disappears irreversibly. If, as in the case of Yamaneko, it is a cyclone passing only over the ocean, nothing will be left of it.

Its implications will be reflected in other forecasts for some time. Even its name, assigned by man, will be forgotten as it arose, passed and disappeared completely outside of human settlements.

Magna Mutatio / Pantha Rei

Magna Mutacio is the title of a series of works that explore the transformation of a selected territory over time, specifically the transformation of cities, landscapes, bodies of water and glacial formations. European Space Agency satellite data are used for this analysis. The transformation of the territory is mapped, which, given its size and the long period of observation, could not be perceived from the viewer's perspective. The work thus offers a macro view of the subject.

The Magna Mutatio / Pantha Rei installation explores the unique ecosystem of Lake Natron in northern Tanzania. Monitoring through ESA datasets provides a macro-scale view of the site over different time periods. The work builds on previous work by Magna Mutatio / Natron, which tracked colour phenomena occurring on the lake due to the specific composition of the water there. This time, it is not a comprehensive view of the entire body of water, but more detailed shots of different parts of the lake, conveying the unique processes to the viewer in more detail.

The installation uses translucent panel technology - a layer of liquid crystals extracted from display devices through reverse engineering techniques. Here, the white colour appears as transparent, which allows you to look through one panel to another, blending the images, spreading the visual principle, a different view of the observed reality.

Opposite the viewer, at the far end of the installation, stands a source of red light - a colour characteristic of Lake Natron - which permeates the display opposite the recipient as a unifying principle.

The set of six smaller panels is rounded off by the seventh, the largest, presenting a generative video that takes specific Natron phenomena to more abstract levels. A local species of flamingo also acquires its red coloration by consuming red cyanobacteria found only in the extreme conditions of the lake. Using machine learning, the work works with this concept, thinking independently about the form of the flamingo and trying to give it a shape, starting from already created forms and transforming and improving them again and again.

Magna Mutatio / Natron

Magna Mutacio is the title of a series of works that explore the transformation of a selected territory over time, specifically the transformation of cities, landscapes, bodies of water and glacial formations. European Space Agency satellite data are used for this analysis. The transformation of the territory is mapped, which, given its size and the long period of observation, could not be perceived from the viewer's perspective. The work thus offers a macro view of the subject.

Generative digital graphics and video Magna Mutatio / Natron explores the transformations of Lake Natron in northern Tanzania over the course of a year. Lake Natron is a unique natural phenomenon. The unusually high pH of the lake water and the temperature of up to 60°C, caused by massive evaporation and therefore excessive concentration of sodium carbonate, create specific conditions for a certain species of cyanobacteria that colour the lake red. This unusual phenomenon can also be observed from space.

The extreme environment provides shelter for only a few resistant organisms - the aforementioned cyanobacteria (cyanobacteria), several species of fish or small flamingos, which acquire a pinkish colour due to their specific diet.

Magna Mutatio / Lake MacKay

Magna Mutacio is the title of a series of works that explore the transformation of a selected territory over time, specifically the transformation of cities, landscapes, bodies of water and glacial formations. European Space Agency satellite data are used for this analysis. The transformation of the territory is mapped, which, given its size and the long period of observation, could not be perceived from the viewer's perspective. The work thus offers a macro view of the subject.

Magna Mutatio / Lake MacKay traces the three-year cycle of this salt lake. MacKay is located in the middle of the desert on the border of the states of Western Australia and the Northern Territory. The lake is classified as an ephemeral body of water, which means it only exists during and immediately after rainfall, drying up the rest of the year. Precipitation and subsequent evaporation gives the lake its changing cycle.

Several dominant phenomena can be observed within the ecosystem of this reverse island. Seasonal islands of desert vegetation and algae appear on the surface of the lake, drawing moisture from the lowest parts of the lake where the water is still holding. As the water rises and evaporates, salts and minerals rise to the surface, causing the white colour of the lake basin.

Magna Mutatio / Lake MacKay / Insulae

The work Magna Mutatio / Lake MacKay / Insulae focuses on seasonal islands in the northeast of the lake.

Magna Mutatio / Lake MacKay / Ora

The work Magna Mutatio / Lake MacKay / Ora Closer explores the southern shore of the lake.

Magna Mutatio / Gelu

Magna Mutacio is the title of a series of works that explore the transformation of a selected territory over time, specifically the transformation of cities, landscapes, bodies of water and glacial formations. European Space Agency satellite data are used for this analysis. The transformation of the territory is mapped, which, given its size and the long period of observation, could not be perceived from the viewer's perspective. The work thus offers a macro view of the subject.

The Magna Mutatio / Gelu light video installation focuses on the transformation of glacial formations over six years - Helheim Glacier, Glaciers of western Greeenland, Grey Glacier, Malaspina Glacier, Bear Glatier. The project is inspired by the research of Livia Jakob and her study "Spatially and temporally resolved ice loss in High Mountain Asia and the Gulf of Alaska observed by CryoSat-2 swath altimetry between 2010 and 2019", in which he discusses a new way of mapping glaciers using a radar altimeter. This technique makes it possible to monitor inaccessible glacier areas. Magna Mutatio / Gelu's process, like Jacob's, uses datasets from ESA, whose Copernicus programme is involved in remote sensing of the Earth and provides records from the Sentinel 1-5 space satellites, which examine the Earth's surface using radar and electromagnetic sensing.

The transformation of the glaciers can be observed on six translucent displays that connect the virtual layer of reality being explored with the tangible reality of the gallery. In the generative videos, the acquired data is represented by a pigment dissolving in time and showing the transformation of the observed areas.