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.

Transmutatio

Pragovka Gallery Pop - Up / Prague / Czech Republic

Curator / Lucie Nováčková

Technology / translucent display - 2090x790x60mm / PP hollow cylinder, subwoofer, water - 1230x550mm / series of drawings by robotic arm on paper - 1000x70mm

The installation entitled Transmutatio explores the transformation of water resources in the landscape over the years, not focusing only on negative influences, but trying to make a more complex observation of environmental change and wondering whether this observation can be documented by artistic means at all. He captures the change, which reveals both the negative and positive aspects of water transformation in the landscape, through an installation of interconnected light, sonic and graphic objects.

Water, grasped through its presence in the landscape, becomes the imaginary driver and consequence of the whole concept. Physically, the core of the installation consists of the interconnected objects Transmutatio and Fluctus. Transmutatio shows ink-splattering video drawings based on data from the European Commission's website on a translucent display. The information then travels to the neighbouring Fluctus object, which modulates the sound frequencies according to the dynamics generated by the video drawing in Transmutatio, thereby also influencing the shape of the water surface, which changes in response to the vibrations.

The pair of objects is complemented by a series of six drawings created by a special robotic arm based on data on the drying of the planet from the European Commission's website. These depict various problematic areas that are visually more or less significant, with black being the sign of the least amount of change. 

The whole installation is bathed in a warm yellow light as if in warning contrast to the environmental issue under investigation.