About

Selected writings

HORÁKOVÁ, Jana, Marika KUPKOVÁ a Monika SZŰCSOVÁ. The Black Box Book : Archives and Curatorship in the Age of Transformation of Art Institutions. 1., elektronické vydání. Brno: Masaryk University Press, 2022. 421 s. The Black Box, 1. ISBN 978-80-280-0225-1. doi:10.5817/CZ.MUNI.M280-0225-2022.

The publication is the result of the efforts of an international collective of authors to capture the transformation of exhibition institutions and curation during the Covid 19 pandemic, with a focus on the year 2020. It seeks an answer to the question of how curatorial strategies, communication platforms and the social function of exhibition institutions have changed under the influence of rapid and external circumstances, that forced transition from physical gallery spaces to online. It critically reflects on the exhibition project Černá skříňka/The Black Box (Galerie TIC), in which several curatorial approaches were applied, including the use of artificial intelligence, and places it in the broad context of curatorial projects that were carried out at the same time at home and abroad as well as in the network of terminology apparatus, which is built around the phenomenon of online curation. The research method is a combination of writing the history of presence, mostly from the pen of direct participants, which lends authenticity and engagement to the texts, with theoretical reflection informed by digital and network media theory.

SZŰCSOVÁ, Monika a Marika KUPKOVÁ. Archives in the Age of Transformation of Art Institutions: An Art Preservation Strategy or a Curatorial Experiment? MAP - Media / Archive / Performance. Leipzig: Hochschule für Musik und Theater “Felix Mendelssohn Bartholdy”, 2022, July, č. 12. ISSN 2191-0901. TL02000270, projekt VaV.

The project Black Box was established in the spring of 2020 in the Brno TIC Gallery to support contemporary art and artists at a time when artists and cultural institutions were affected by the existential crisis caused by the COVID-19 global pandemic. This experimental archive, which initially appeared to be temporary, has been developing its activities for a second year in a row. This text aims to provide a report on the ongoing remakes and postproductions of this archive and present various curatorial interventions carried out on the archived works of the participating artists. We observe a shift of exhibition institutions towards community centres with a diversified program, raising their social awareness and critical self-reflection, and building new means of communication on the axis of the artist-spectator. Especially in the latter area, creating and enabling access to an art archive is an essential tool.

SZŰCSOVÁ, Monika. Rethinking Execution. Computational Culture. 2021, č. 8. ISSN 2047-2390.

Review of Helen Pritchard, Eric Snodgrass and Magda Tyżlik-Carver, Eds., Executing Practices (Open Humanities Press, 2018), 310 pp., ISBN 978-1-78542-056-6

SZŰCSOVÁ, Monika. How Did We Become Screen Watchers or the Screen as the Ultimate Gallery Space. In Marie Meixnerová (ed.). The Art of Screensaver. 1. vyd. Olomouc: PAF, z.s. and Brno University of Technology, 2020. s. 78 - 95. ISBN 978-80-87662-28-1.

Framed by notions for the need of recontextualization of curatorial models and viewing spaces for new media art (Paul, 2008; Cook, 2008; Cook – Krzemień Barkley, 2016; Ghidini, 2019) this contribution contemplates how screen of various media was used over time as an extension or/and substitution of the physical gallery space. Revisiting some forerunners of online galleries verifies that the contemporary online viewing spaces are not new constructs, only evolving and framed by different formats and cultural means, based on the medium it inhabits, or uses as an interface for presenting art. The concept of platforms as spaces for artistic production and collaboration (Goriunova, 2006, 2012, 2016) is followed through from early networked communities of 1980`s and 1990`s that used their networked spaces (platforms) for sharing work related to creative testing of the limits of the emerging media, collaboration, and presentation of ideas (Ascott, 1989; Daniels, 2009; Catlow – Garrett, 2012). Two contemporary examples are used to exemplify how today`s artists use various forms of online space to provide media-art-specific space for presenting contemporary (new media) art: Aram Bartholl`s Speed Show (2010 - ) and the ScreenSaverGallery (2013 - ) established by the curatorial team Barbora Trnková, Tomáš Javůrek and Marie Meixnerová. The limits and qualities of presenting platforms are tested by means of rethinking of artistic and curatorial practices of their own media space.

HORÁKOVÁ, Jana, Jiří MUCHA, Monika SZŰCSOVÁ, Adam FRANC, Martina IVIČIČ, Tomáš STAUDEK, Filip JOHÁNEK, Jakub BAJZÍK a Pavel SIKORA. Hands-on Media Art Theory. TIM Exhibited @ Ars Electronica Festival 2019. 1., elektronické vyd. Brno: Masaryk University Press, 2019. 76 s. ISBN 978-80-210-9376-8.

Catalog of the Hands-on Media Art Theory exhibition, which presented educational and research projects of the Theory of Interactive Media study program at the Ars Electronica festival in Linz, Austria in 2019. The exhibition showed both creative works of students made within the subjects taught in the Theory of Interactive Media study program and two research projects that go beyond the territories and methods of traditionally understood arts sciences towards curatorial and innovative use of the potential of new media as instruments of research.

SZŰCSOVÁ, Monika. Definícia novomediálneho umeleckého diela v teóriách Espena J. Aarsetha a Noaha Wardrip-Fruina. Edited by René-Jean Dupuy. Ezin TIM. Masarykova univerzita, 2014, roč. 2014, Vol 4, No 1–2 (2014), s. 39-51. ISSN 1805-2606.

The article aims to compare the definition of new media art work of two new media theorists Espen Aarseth and Noah Wardrip-Fruin. The article explores possible similarity of these definitions as well as a shift in the understanding of digital media and related processes. Wardrip-Fruin (2009) asks how can we evaluate artistic (cultural) work based on employing the computer processes by artists and finding unusual ways of using them as the key to controlling digital media, and the enablement of unique artistic expression. A decade earlier Aarseth represents the new media artwork (cybertext) as a tool for production of different queries, which uses the principles of the calculated output and is used to describe the communication strategies of the dynamic text. Their research will be seen mainly through the method of comparison and analysis of the applicable theories. For this purpose we analyse and compare their main texts: Cybertex – Perspectives on Ergodic Literature (1997) by Espen J. Aarseth and Expressive Processing. Digital Fictions, Computer Games, and Software Studies (2009) by Noah Wardrip-Fruin.