Jonathan Monaghan / interview

The work of Josef Bolf (1971) is mainly accessible through his captivating paintings and drawings. At PAF, he will present five new videos that have been shown at his exhibitions over the last several years. Videos with motifs of performance, radio plays and classic puppet films are all part of Bolf’s artistic world, with various features of animation and stories within stories.

Samson Kambalu (1975) is a native of Malawi, Africa. His life and his attitude towards art were formed by his early experience with the cinema of attractions, the solipsistic nature of the Chewa tribe and his father’s “philosophical lectures.”

As  an  author  he  is  active  within  various  media,  such  as  site­specific  installations, drawings,  paintings,  videos,  performances  and  literature.  His  work  typically  contains autobiographical elements and is strongly influenced by situationism, excess, humour and wit; all of which he uses  as tools for his  constant  examination of the boundaries of history,  art, human identity, religion and the freedom of the individual.

He  is  the  author  of  two  award­winning  publications,  an autobiographical  novel The Jive  Talker  or,  How  to  Get  a  British  Passport  (2008)  and  Uccello’s  Vineyard  (2012),  a fictitious narrative situated in the Middle Ages that is about photography and art and uses the detournement technique. Kambalu currently lives and works in GB.

Portuguese filmmaker and visual artist Pedro Maia collaborates with numerous musicians across the rock and electronic scenes. He is a part of a younger generation that builds upon the tradition of Expanded Cinema and expands the aesthetic and technological “heritage” of classic film procedures of working with 16mm and 8mm material. Pedro Maia will present a selection of his work in an individual presentation and will perform with British musician Vessel on their audio-visual event, which is thematically connected to the recording Punish, Honey (Tri Angle, 2014). Slovakian musician Jonatán Pastirčák praises Vessel’s music for its “delicate production and disharmony. Every sound has its specific space and character. Maybe that is what adds the inimitable atmosphere to his compositions; it feels as if he accidentally found himself at the warehouse party gig of a band of robotic skeletons playing instruments handmade from various metal scraps and wires found in an abandoned factory.” Vessel publishes at Tri Angle Records and Young Echo.

Tokyo based artist Takashi Makino (1978) has studied in the atelier of the Quay Brothers in London. Creatively, he moves between exhibitions and film and music festivals. In his work, he combines both classic and digital film technologies. Besides his own musical production, he often collaborates with American musician and producer Jim O’Rourke, Dutch creator Machinefabriek and others. Space Noise 3D performance is created by combining and interweaving the visual outputs of a 16mm projector and a data projector. The effort to physically represent the image before it touches the screen flows through the noise performance, where the author also creates the sound. The viewers watch the resulting image via 3D glasses.

The Berlin-based Norwegian artist and musician Lars TCF Holdhus will perform aquadrophonic “composition” for a baroque chapel. Jonatán Pastirčák describes Holdhus’ work as “unpredictably flowing ambient soundscapes that meet abstract rhythmic structures, so as to create impressive sonic landscapes full of surprising moments and sound accidents.” The randomness of Holdhus’ music comes out of his fascination in encryption and computer algorithms – the name of every track is a sequence of numbers and letters, same as the name of the performance prepared for PAF itself. It is of no use to divide the piece Aedrhlsomrs Othryutupt Lauecehrofn into visual and musical projects, since they are very tightly connected, they develop on similar motifs and the only difference is the presentation media, similar to the anagram of the name.

American animator and visual artist Jonathan Monaghan uses computer animation to further develop the bond between moving images and physically existing objects. His artworks are often created by combining 3D prints with noble materials. At PAF, Monaghan will present, in his own screening block Animated Worlds, a selection of videos that create a quite complex mythopoetic world. It is a world derived from the transformations of luxurious spaces, from the modified symbolism connected to animal archetypes and power. Motifs with elements of baroque and rococo ornaments subsequently appear in physically existing objects. Architecture of Fantasy is the title of the presentation in which the author will reveal his inspirational sources and work methods in more detail.

Greg Pope is a British filmmaker. At PAF he will introduce his own film production and a new live performance. The performance was created together with the Czech music project Salvia, which consists of the visual artist Veronika Vlková and Czech musician Kateřina Koutná (Makak). The performance is built on a sequence of permeating slides, which are divided according to the content into separate thematic chapters. An instrumental and vocal component of performance completes the overall, epic nature of the performance. In the long term, Greg Pope engages in performative approaches in the field of live cinema. Currently, he works in Oslo, Norway, and his film production involves the work with different technologies and materials.

Artist and musician Stanislav Abrahám’s live performance will consist of the presentation of his last record Shapescapes, which combines synthetic sounds and ambient recordings, and the audiovisual project Spectral Scenery, based on a system of oscillating sound loops programmed by the artist and accompanied by images.

Ambientní hudební projekt violoncellistky Kateřiny Koutné (Teve, spolupráce s Paramount Styles, Hope Astronaut, Akne auf der Stirn) za doprovodu VJingu výtvarnice Anny Balážové. V roce 2014 Makaku vyšla první studiová nahrávka na kazetě s názvem Stromy.

Dominik Gajarský (Table, Palermo) představí na PAFu svůj dosud studiový sólový projekt Slowmotiondancer. V roce 2014 vydal album Life is Fine, které navazuje na předchozí tvorbu s Palermo. Melancholické synthpopové melodie se zde mírně posouvají k electru, r'n'b a soulu.