Project

How is possible that somebody who is so known for his cultural footprints at once disappear from his life and finally from history as well? What is for artists a key to survive oblivion? Paris, January 16, 1940 – A French-speaking couple expected to arrive at the GARE DE L'EST does not disembark from the Orient Express. The porter waits for them in vain at their Paris hotel; in vain the curator looks for them at the site of today’s Pasteur morgue; and to everyone’s surprise the couple do not even appear that evening for the wild party at the offices of Booster Magazine in the rue Villa Seurat. Seventy years later, led by the film’s director, a forensics team consisting of police officers, historians, politicians, a youthful tour guide and colourful representatives of contemporary art and advertisement put together clues to create a detailed map to the story of two unique figures of European modernity: social utopians, Europeans in body and spirit, visionaries and discoverers of countless artistic, literary and advertising techniques. The interactive platform enables each of the users to become a part of the forensic team. The platform has been designed as an organic part of the coming major exhibition at the National Gallery in Prague initiated by the film we are making. The actual gallery space and space in a smart phone are identical. The gallery space contains "Memory Boxes" full of memories, proofs, our film discoveries and visual interpretations by contemporary artists. The smart phone is a tool that invokes the augmented reality of the presented things. The non linear nature of the platform precisely matches random spacing of the "corpus delicti objects" during the investigation. With just photographs as a base, current technologies enable to virtually recreate the long vanished RYKR's sculptures and also the artist's unique happenings/exhibitions, so to bring back to life what would otherwise be lifeless if confined to a showcase.