1 July – 4th September, 2022
Znovu Navštívit (Re-visit) traces the origin of an old forgotten image that had been lost amongst thousands of others on the narrator’s cloud account.
The poor quality image provides a lens into the moment of its capture back in 2008 during an art residency at a remote rural location in the Czech Republic. It provides a ghostly signal that disrupts linear systems of time and acts on Walter Benjamin’s idea of ‘profane illuminations’ where unseeable relations are brought into view. The disembodied voice of the narrator traces the series of events that led to its capture; including a journey through dense forest to the ruins of a remote chapel. We also hear about the functionality of the early smartphone that the image was taken on, the Nokia N95, which at the time was a device ‘of the future’ filled with possibility but is now obsolete.
The image itself looks up at the sky through the walls of the ruined chapel, apparently waiting for something. The story of its origins is juxtaposed with a discussion around the moving image work that the narrator was making during the residency, a response to the Czech TV series Návštěvníci (The Visitors), a sci-fi series set in the 25th century, where populations live in a peaceful world until an impending disaster occurs, with an unidentified object heading towards the earth.
In the film, a speculative proposal is drawn out for re-activating the lost image and the location of its capture, the narrator notes that this site appears to be greyed out and completely invisible on Google Maps. The narrator embraces the possibilities of this greyed out condition, proposing to merge himself into the picture, embracing its lossy data and becoming a flexible form that can navigate seamlessly between 2008 and the present moment, as a method for rethinking its past, present and future history. The narrator also considers the possibilities of operating between physical and virtual forms as a mode of escape from current conditions.
The work represents an important evolution in Charlie Tweed’s practice, where he has chosen to reinstate personal narratives within his works, whilst considering the construction of self, the possibilities of new forms of consciousness and the reactivation of images, defunct technologies and moments in his past work.