Distorted Session #9: Step Inside the House of Arts

"Step Inside the House of Arts" is a new tour format in which we’ll take a closer look at our current exhibitions together. Interesting facts, new insights, practical tips, and more - all presented in a clear and accessible way by our guides. And this time also in English!

On Saturday, 11 July 2026, starting at 2:00 pm, we’ll take a closer look at the exhibition Distorted Image. Chapters from the Beginnings of Videoart. How has video technology transformed not only art but also our society? How were the first TV themes and animated music videos created? Why is it worth seeing this exhibition more than once? And is there a bit of a video artist in all of us? You’ll learn all this and much more on this tour.

Admission: 100 CZK
You can purchase tickets in advance via GoOut.

ABOUT THE EXHIBITION

The exhibition looks at the beginnings of video art in the former Czechoslovakia and in Poland and Hungary from the late 1960s to the mid-1990s. The selection of important events and artworks cannot be separated from the overall social and political context, which significantly determined artists’ access to technologies, the way they worked with video, and the possibilities for sharing their work. Using examples from these countries, the exhibition encourages visitors to search for differences as well as parallels and points of intersection.

In order to provide a full picture of the evolution of this art form, the exhibition includes experimental films, documentary records of performances and actions, and early works of animation. Another important component are independent video magazines on video cassettes that reported on politics and culture (examples include Originální Videojournal, Videomagazín Vokna, Videomagazín Karla Kyncla, and Infermental). Besides single-channel video, visitors can also see various video installations and video sculptures, many of which have only survived via secondary documentation of their existence.

The exhibition’s title is a reference to the deliberate as well as unintentional distortion and manipulation of images; to artists’ experimentation with analog and digital video, television signals, and the television set as an art object; and to the questioning of the image’s very ability to inform truthfully about reality. It also suggests that, from today’s perspective, it is difficult to provide a full picture of the history and evolution of video art. Original materials are difficult to gain access to, they are scattered throughout private and public collections, or they are in artists’ archives at various stages of digitization or still on historical recording media that is slowly deteriorating in attics and basements. Few institutions in the Czech Republic or other Central European countries are engaged in the collecting and storage of video art, and almost none is focused on video installation. The exhibiting of historical works raises questions related to the proper manner of their presentation and the extent to which they can be reconstructed or reproduced.

The exhibition pays special attention to the local context, as Brno played an important role in early video art. For instance, exhibition openings at the underground Galerie drogerie – Zlevněné zboží (Off-Price Drugstore Gallery, 1986–1989) included screenings of video portraits of the exhibiting artists. The “Na Květné” audiovisual center began operating at Brno University of Technology in the 1980s, and the Studio of Video and Multimedia Animation was founded at the university’s Faculty of Fine Arts under the guidance of Radek Pilař in 1992, followed by a media archive and multimedia laboratory with which Woody Vašulka was briefly associated as well. Brno in the 1990s also hosted the innovative Hi-Tech/Umění (Hi-Tech/Art) exhibitions.