Chronologies
Daniel Grúň

…Time I… and …Time II… – cosmological probes, futurological prognoses / discussion forums and conceptual interventions

Keywords: artist-publication conceptual art site-specificity

Cosmological visions, meditations on the future of civilization, the implementation of information from the natural sciences, and inquiries into cosmic communications were of great importance for Bratislava-based conceptual artists. Using the medium of offset print, the artists also utilized visual signs, photography, diagrams, scientific ideas, codes, and numerals. In the beginning of 1970s, Rudolf Sikora became acquainted with a samizdat translation titled Limits to Growth, which was edited by Dennis L. Meadows. It was the first publication of its kind to highlight the effects of rapid population growth and limited natural resources. It was Sikora who brought together artists and theoreticians, organized closed discussion forums, and took responsibility for printing large posters of their collective that was composed as a somewhat pseudoscientific cosmological probe and future prognoses. The joint project was spurred by the upcoming congress of speleologists in Brno, and composed as a collection of conceptual interventions in the caves of Moravian Karst.

Date: June 1973

Participants: Ján Zavarský (b. 1948), Rudolf Sikora (b. 1946), Miloš Laky (1948–1975), Július Koller (b. 1939), Stano Filko (b. 1937) with Peter Bartoš (b. 1938), Michal Kern (1938–1994), Tomáš Štrauss (1931–2013)

Location: Moravský Kras / Moravian Karst and Studio of Rudolf Sikora, Bratislava, Czechoslovakia