StartPoint Prize 2016

Vojtěch Pollák

The technology of drones, which have in recent years become from an exclusively military or scientific technology a toy accessible to the masses, has for some years been the subject of Vojtěch Pollák’s attention. The flying devices manufactured by the artist, however, are used for unsettling performances which go against our notions of privacy, safety and subjectivity itself. The camera output transmitted from his drones through wireless technology enable him to venture on performances transmitted live from positions that are beyond our reach. A flying index- finger disrupts the peace and order in the studios of Prague’s Academy of Fine arts. A flock of drones with remote-controlled outstretched fists enacts a chaotic and self-destructive brawl. Another drone carries a loudspeaker frenetically amplifying its own ambience. Pollak’s playfully absurd mechanisms are not only entertaining, often they emphatically and radically explore the limits where contemporary technology clashes with new, as yet undefined and unsuspected limits of freedom and privacy.