Nikola Ivanov (*1990)
MgA.Nikola Ivanov is an intermedia artist based in Prague working mainly with photography, video, and graphic design. His work deals with the issue of time, historical memory, biopolitics and very often is inspired by social sciences. He studied at the Department of Photography at Film and TV School of the Academy of Performing Arts in Prague and at the Academy of Arts, Architecture, and Design in Prague where he graduated in the Studio of Graphic Design and Visual Communication. His diploma project is an anthology book on the biopolitics of sleep in the form of texts first translated into Czech by several authors. An edited version was officially released by publishing house Host in January 2022. Nikola currently studies in the Ph.D. program at the Academy of Arts, Architecture and Design (Department of Fine Arts). Nikola exhibited in many solo and group exhibitions in the Czech Republic and abroad. He taught externally at the FAMU in Prague and completed artistic residencies in Le Mans, Paris Košice and Bánská Štiavnica.
Oversaturated by Brightness: Modernity, Colonization of the Night and Space Mirrors
My project focuses on how modernity and technologies have changed the understanding of nighttime. The key term for this topic is the "24/7 society" denoting the current state of non-stop flow of information, data and capital that blurs the distinctions between day and night. How does this relate to the current economic system? What traces does 24/7 civilization leave on the environment? What is the historical development of this phenomenon? This project focus on certain extreme trends which thrive to reduce or destroy the night's darkness, be it in the name of scientific progress or economical effectiveness - especially one-hundred-year-old history of the concept of illuminating the Earth from space using the mirror satellites, which reflect the sunbeams to vast areas of Earth during the night. I am interested in the cultural, political and environmental aspects of these efforts, which I understand as an expression of radical modernity in the wider context of the subjugation of nature and the disruption of natural planetary rhythms with the use of technological extension.
