Bára Mrázková is visual artist based in
Prague. In her artistic practice, she focuses primarily on
lens-based media. In the past, she developed a collaborative practice with
Filip Láb. In their work, they explored not only the spaces of Eastern European
post-communism but also the photographic boundaries between documentary and
fiction. Through further exploration of the fundamental aspects and phenomena
related to the medium of photography and its relationship to reality, she
gradually came to examine the changes brought about by the transition from
analog to digital photography and, subsequently, its algorithmic nature. She is
currently engaged with the material, ecological, and political aspects of the
digital image. She focuses on the mechanisms hidden behind the mining of rare
minerals, their processing, and the subsequent industrial production of the
ubiquitous electronic devices that enable the creation of technical images. In
her projects, she explores the process of image formation from data flow to
physical materiality. She has exhibited her work at the Václav Špála Gallery in
Prague, the Fotograf Gallery, the House of Arts in Brno, and the Czech Centers
in Paris and The Hague, Julius Koller Society in Bratislava among other venues.
Sky Does Appear To Be Falling, 2024
dual-channel HD video, 12:32
The video addresses the transformation of million-year-old natural resources into a socially necessary commodity that has become the object of investment strategies and financial speculation. Its focus turns to Cínovec in the Ore Mountains — a site containing lithium ore that is the subject of a planned mining project. The work explores Mount Cínovec from two perspectives. The first leads us underground, through tunnels that are now closed, beneath which lies a lithium deposit estimated for extraction in millions of tons of ore. The accompanying commentary draws on promotional materials by the ČEZ Group, one of the two investors involved in the mining project. The second perspective turns to the area of the planned surface mining — the so-called tailings pond — where lithium sands are located. Here, the narrative exposes a story of corruption accompanying the transfer of land into private ownership. Cínovec is a landscape that preserves traces of past events and human interventions, while simultaneously generating its own responses that reverberate into the surrounding environment. It is a space that may, in the future, become either a site of resolution to various crises, or conversely, their origin.
Every Step You Take, 2023
HD video, 14:33
The video Every Step You Take uses Reverse Image Search, which finds visually similar images based on uploaded photographs rather than traditional keyword-based searches. It analyzes colors, contrasts, shapes, and edges to identify shared visual features — a process comparable to fingerprint matching. In addition to algorithms, neural networks recognize the content of visual material, aiming to interpret objects and their relationships. The video presents two sequences — meeting halfway — of found visual material from Google Image Search and Microsoft Bing, offering algorithmic interpretations based on an initial photograph of a server from the Kokura data center in Prague. Both search engines operate by analyzing displayed objects and dominant motifs, generating thematic variations. This video expands on the Yellow Box project (2020), which focuses on data mining, the materiality of the internet, and data storage. The videos were created specifically for the screensaver gallery format. They are personally curated by the author to align with the visual criteria utilized by search engine algorithms. This process can be understood as a collaboration between algorithmic systems and the artist, forming a kind of dialogue and navigation.
The phrase “Every step you take, every move you make” refers to the ubiquitous surveillance carried out by algorithms. The video is accompanied by audio recorded during a journey through the data center.
Stone in the Window, 2023 (in collaboration with Tereza Velíková)
intermedia Installation
Stone in the Window follows on from the three-part podcast Rock, Stone, Mineral, Ore and serves as a broader commentary or analogy addressing a wide range of issues related to the extraction and subsequent processing of stone and minerals, as well as the lay perception of geology. The videos engage with the themes of museology and mineralogy in relation to esotericism. While the first video explores the use of minerals within the esoteric concept of energy flow, the second works with footage from amateur mineral fairs and showcases in geological museums, where the very static and conservative nature of stone display itself refers to a scientific mode of presentation. The digital prints represent precise formulas for calculating emissions generated by various human activities. They quantify specific forms of consumption — such as cooking, casting concrete, or the energy use recalculated into CO₂ emissions of a specific gallery. They reveal the endless range of activities that contribute to environmental degradation and the impossibility of existing in today’s world without participating in this process. The installation can be understood as a commentary on our inability to translate this issue into concrete numbers — figures that would not, in any case, bring us closer to understanding it. These exact formulas thus become abstract images and, in the context of the Schule Gallery (a former school building), may also evoke the agitational decorations familiar from our own school years.
Ore, Mineral, Dust, Metal, 2023
HD video, 10:53
The video Ore, Mineral, Dust, Metal traces the transformation of coltan (columbite-tantalite) into an electronic component — the tantalum capacitor. The mining of this so-called conflict mineral takes place primarily in the Democratic Republic of the Congo and neighboring countries, and is closely linked to armed conflict, exploitation, black-market trading, and child labor. The extracted and ground ore is transported to processing facilities, mostly in China or Thailand, before reaching Lanškroun, Czech Republic, in the form of tantalum dust. At the Kyocera AVX plant, it undergoes a complex industrial process to produce a component that can be found in most of our electronic devices. Geologist Jan Loun, employed at Kyocera AVX, describes the methodical procedures used to verify the origin of ore sourced from problematic areas, ensuring transparency within the supply chain and stabilizing coltan prices. One of the methods applied is laser ablation, performed for Loun by geologist Jitka Míková.
Rock, Stone, Mineral, Ore, 2023
The podcast Rock, Stone, Mineral, Ore follows the rare mineral coltan and its transformation into an electronic component — the tantalum capacitor. Through interviews with experts, the three-part series examines coltan within the broader context of social, historical, and environmental relationships, addressing topics such as colonial history and slavery and their modern forms, working conditions in mining, and the ecological burden arising from ore processing. It explores the mechanisms underlying the extraction and industrial production of electronic goods, as well as the patterns of consumer logic inherent to our social system — global capitalism.
First part. Geologist Jan Loun, employed at Kyocera AVX in Lanškroun, the world’s largest consumer of tantalum, discusses mining and working conditions in the Congo and describes a method he developed for verifying the origin of ore mined from conflict areas.
Second part. The Czech Kyocera AVX plant manufactures tantalum capacitors and other components essential for electronic engineering, as well as for industries such as defense and mining. Slavomír Pala, the company’s Technical Marketing Manager, explains the capacitor manufacturing process and its applications, while Hynek Stejskal, the company’s Director, outlines its history, production strategy, and future orientation.
Third part. Geologists Dobroslav Matějka and Viktor Goliáš discuss the relationship between geology and mining, addressing the topic of mineral reserves and the ways in which they are utilized. Jiří Škaloud, a promoter of modern spirituality, approaches mining and natural resources from an esoteric perspective. He presents stones as specific carriers of information with which communication is possible under certain conditions.
Yellow Box, 2020
intermedia installation
The Yellow Box project examined automated operations and algorithms that sort, classify, and distribute digital images across the internet. It focused on the invisible infrastructure of technical images — from the data centers where images are stored to the extraction of raw materials that enable the production of devices generating them. The installation interconnected the visual and sonic spheres: videos demonstrated how different internet search engines mechanically interpret an identical image, while an audio recording from a data center evoked the physical presence of digital infrastructure. The exhibition marked the beginning of a broader artistic research that links algorithmic processes, the material infrastructure of media, and the political ecology of the image.
Three synchronized videos were created from the results of reverse image searches — Google Image Search, Microsoft’s Bing, and Russian Yandex — based on a single photograph of the
MIT Media Lab titled Yellow Box. Each search engine generated distinct visual chains, ranging from realistic records to poetic and absurd interpretations. The video sequences reveal how the algorithms visually assess information — according to colors, shapes, contrasts, and motifs rather than meaning. The series of images highlights the sociocultural and geographical differences among the individual search engines. Each operates with its own database and reproduces cultural biases and hierarchies.
A sound recording made at the Kokura data center was placed inside a disassembled server rack. The dense hum of fans and the sound of circulating air blended with the voice of a technician who poetically described data flows as blood circulation, comparing the servers to the heart chambers and veins of the system.
A series of large-format photographs of coltan ore, drawn from museum and private geological collections, continues the themes of mining and the material infrastructure of digital media. The rare mineral columbite-tantalite is used in the production of electronic components and chips for mobile phones, computers, and other devices. It belongs to a group of so-called conflict minerals, whose extraction is often associated with armed conflict, exploitation, black-market trade, and child labor — particularly in the Congo. For this reason, it is also referred to as“blood coltan“.
Inner Plexiform Layer, Inner Nuclear Layer, Outer Plexiform Layer, Outer Nuclear Layer, 2012
photographic installation (projection, spotlight)
Bára Mrázková’s work Inner Plexiform Layer, Inner Nuclear Layer, Outer Plexiform Layer, Outer Nuclear Layer takes us with its name alone to a land of observation where the viewing function connects with the function of understanding. This is how we know it from the English double-meaning of the phrase “I see” (I know). With her installation Bára Mrázková places us right on the spot of the border between the cave and the external world, in the moment of fierce blinding, when we lose contact with the past (according to Plato through a world of senses, illusions, shadow-play and doxies) unable to read the world of logos, epistemes. On the retina burned by a sun spot it allows us to see the world behind us.
The simple and exact manifestation, just as symbolic as a commenting photographic and scientific principles, focuses on the phenomenon of light as such; light as a condition for life and sight and photography.The counter-light again speaks to the nature of media and its processes, of flash in the eyes, of the moment when you come out of the darkroom. When we turn away afterwards, we block the light projected onto the world with our own presence. The reduced visibility covers up other content and terms. We are alone with ourselves, inside, and we attempt that strong experience, stifling the state of ecstasy by the quickest orientation in space possible. Control equals surviving and choosing the right shield. (Edit Jeřábková)
Kill Your Darling, 2010
installation, HD video 09:16
The theme of the exhibition explores the relationships among images within photographic series, taking the phrase Kill Your Darling as its starting point. As photographic material, I used — and thereby rescued — my own “darlings”: favorite photographs that had been excluded from previous projects, images that could not be further developed, or solitary shots without direct links to one another. From this archive, a new visual object emerged intuitively and subconsciously, created directly within the gallery space. The individual photographs were placed in a new context, installed on the gallery walls, and subsequently rephotographed. The newly created image was then transformed into a 1:1 wallpaper print, which was installed in the exact location where the original photograph had been taken. Through this process, the entire series was consolidated into a new whole — given a concrete form.
A video accompanying the installation functions as a kind of manual for understanding ther prossess of creation of this photographic file.
Daily Mirror, 2008
photographic series, interview with Stuart Christie, 17:46
The exhibition The Daily Mirror is based on the life story of the well-known British anarchist Stuart Christie, who attempted to assassinate General Francisco Franco in 1964. It explores his relationship with the Angry Brigade, a terrorist group active in the late 1960s and early 1970s, and follows the highly publicized trial of its members. The installation consists of rephotographed period newspaper articles sourced from archival microfilms, covering various stages of Christie’s life, alongside a video featuring Christie’s own commentary on these events. The exhibition also includes a series of photographs inspired by incidents from that period. These images refer to one of the Angry Brigade’s attacks — a bombing of a CNN broadcast van on the night before the live broadcast of the Miss Worldcontest on November 20, 1970.
The exhibition examines the function of photography within archival and news systems before the global digitization of image data. The Daily Mirror addresses the media’s imaginative and persuasive power, as well as the genre of journalistic photography as a tool of collective memory and ideological representation.
Eastern Bloc, 2006 (in collaboration with Filip Láb)
photographic series, videos
Eastern Block explores the specificities and contrasts of life in totalitarian and post-totalitarian societies, reflecting our generation’s relationship with history. It searches for and maps the traces left by the totalitarian past and the transformation of the political system on our generation. The work refers to real places and historical events that serve as starting points for the stories, as well as to childhood recollections and the reconstruction of memories from today’s perspective. Working with these materials becomes an act of construction and staging — a variation and re-vision of the given events. The project is divided into chapters devoted to individual Eastern European countries — Slovakia, Poland, the former German Democratic Republic, Hungary, and the former Yugoslavia. The photographs are accompanied by videos in which local inhabitants — who also appear as actors in the photographs — recount their own stories.
The project takes the form of a staged documentary with performative elements, where directed scenes blend with everyday reality, and where the working methods, semantic frameworks, and aesthetics of different photographic genres intersect.
... One big paradox of a memory is that it’s a place of oblivion as well. Memory isn’t flawless nor is it perfect and capable of perfectly reliving our past. But then would the past cease to exist. A memory is very selective, choosing what to preserve. That is why remembering isn’t only a passive reproduction of the past, it’s an act that gives our past a purpose. We remember only things we consider important or at least important to us but those are only as significant as we reckon them to be. The memory itself is a place where we distinguish important from unimportant, place where the past has a meaning it can’t have on its own. Without a memory the past is forgotten as soon as it ceased to be the present. The memory holds it, retains it, saves it but not like in a museum. It gives the past a new life in the present as something that shapes and influences the present. This simple definition gets complicated when we recall that memory however collective, generational or otherwise noncommittal it may be is in the first place personaland private, belonging to each one of us. That means that all of us are responsible for the existence of the past things but in the same time each one of us is as well and in a quite special and personal way too. Our personal memory is a guarantee that the past won’t be forgotten and if the collective memory exists and if the history exists it’s only because of one man’s will not to forget this or that, a will to remember and to make things he remembers and which are important to him a part of his present. When we say that something doesn’t want to be forgotten it really means that there is someone who doesn’t want it forgotten.
Bára Mrázková and Filip Láb are remembering just these kinds of traces that have been left in their memories by the era that their generation has encountered at its end. ...
(Excerpt from Miroslav Petříček’s text Remembering the Present, Eastern Block catalogue, 2006)
American Night, 2006 (ve spolupráci s Filipem Lábem)
photographic series and music video
American Night is the first chapter of the exhibition series Eastern Bloc. In the form of a fictional documentary, it follows the muted realities of an abandoned military zone and recalls the collapse of a world once enclosed by the Iron Curtain. The work focuses on places that have lost their original function and now exist in a state of suspension and timelessness. It evokes the memory of these locations and raises questions about what happens to a space once its historical grounding has disappeared. At the time of its creation, the photographic project also represented a formal exploration of the boundaries of documentary and journalistic photography. The title of the series refers to the cinematic technique known as “American night” — shooting nighttime scenes in daylight using tinted filters — which was applied during the photo session. The selected images form a mosaic of fragmentary scenes that explore archetypes of the documentary visual language: the symbolism of active and passive resistance, resignation, and defiance.
The photographs are accompanied by a music video created in collaboration with director Bořivoj Hořínek for the song Eisbär by the German band Grauzone.
Grauzone Eisbär, 2006 (in collaboration with Bořivoj hořínek)
music video, 03:21
The music video was part of the American Night exhibition. It was created in collaboration with director Bořivoj Hořínek and draws on the visual aesthetics of 1980s music videos. Originally, it was published on a now-defunct website jointly run with Filip Láb as part of the Východní blok (Eastern Bloc) project. Thanks to users who reposted, shared, and remixed the video on their channels, it has continued to circulate across various online platforms for more than seventeen years. As a result of this ongoing dissemination, the video has now reached nearly twelve million views on one uploader’s YouTube channel.