Fatescapes

Pavel Maria Smejkal FATESCAPES This work, a series of images that are completely familiar yet strikingly alien, seems at first to address primarily historical themes, including the history of human events as well as the history of the photographic medium itself. But more fundamentally it stems from current perspectives, reflections, and technical possibilities. Thanks to the rise of digitalization, the widespread sharing of information on the Internet, and the postmodern approach to themes of originality, reality, and truth, photography has become something very different from what it was when it first came into being. Fatescapes is, among other things, a commentary on these current trends, situations, and changing reality. This work also addresses questions of artistic re-appropriation. Even though in Fatescapes the author uses large parts of the original images, the result is a certain negation of the original meaning or function of the piece. Fatescapes, under the title evoking the content of the original photographs reflecting fateful events of global importance, and evoking landscape as an anchor of our earthly existence, represents a work focusing on tough turning points of humanity in the past and at the same moment raising questions about the present and the future.