Projecting onto Prague
Signal Festival returned to the cobbled streets of the Czech capital in October 2024, bringing with it a dazzling array of cinematic digital art
Words Verity Butler
Signal is a festival of digital and creative culture, and during its ten-year tenure it’s welcomed an impressive five million plus visitors to Prague. Linking contemporary visual art, urban space and modern technologies, it has also become the most-visited cultural event in Czechia as a whole. The programme, created by Czech artists renowned in the areas of lighting design, visual and digital art, returned to the city of Prague with a bang in 2024.
Linking the historical backdrop of the beloved city with both state-of-the-art technology and contemporary social issues, the festival likes to educate itself as well as its visitors. Supporting the youngest generation of local artists, Signal has originated the creation of over 70 installations, and it organises side events for children, professional public and students. It also collaborates with numerous other foreign festivals and cultural institutions.
From Filip Hodas’ moody and climactic Eternal Recurrence to a captivating interplay between human dance and provocative projection for Iron Horse: Fractured by Laterna Magika, the 2024 edition offered a diverse array of art pieces. LIVE joined Christie Digital in the Czech capital to witness some of the spectacles in person, with Christie acting as a key technical provider for the festival. Using the AV giant’s powerhouse projectors, the artists’ works illuminated some of Prague’s most iconic architecture.
Cracking the code
Our first stop on the tour was Prague Castle Riding School, to unravel South Korean artist Seohyo’s Coded Tapestry. A professor at the Samsung Art and Design Institute in Seoul, she teaches creative coding and builds installations that blend everyday objects with digital technology – transforming the ordinary into something new.
“While studying design,” introduces Seohyo, “I naturally began working with digital tools. Early on in my career, I focused on creating interactive media performances and installations that connected human movement with visual imagery through technology.
“During the pandemic, I started a coding project in which I uploaded a piece of artwork to Instagram every day, aiming to make each day meaningful. Through this process, I explored generative art deeply. Over time, I became increasingly captivated by the influence of geometry, mathematics and nature on generative art.”
Seohyo’s work is often displayed on urban digital billboards and has been exhibited globally, including at D Festival, Demo Festival and the National Museum of Korean Contemporary History.
Drawing inspiration from Prague’s urban architecture – including tapestry designs, Prague Castle and mosaic tile patterns – this installation digitally reinterprets these elements, as the artist creates a dynamic moving structure that reflects the rhythms of the city.
“The Seoul version of Coded Tapestry debuted in 2024,” Seohyo continues, “followed by the Prague version at Signal in 2024. The piece takes inspiration from Prague’s rich history and architectural elements. Influences include the intricate decorations of Prague Castle, the geometric designs of mosaic tiles and the patterns found in cubism and brutalist architecture. These elements were digitally encoded and reinterpreted into a dynamic structure that captures the energy of a modern metropolis.”
This produced brightly coloured patterns and shapes that were hypnotic; separating and merging in a vibrant, yet formulaic fashion. Featuring random variations within set parameters, the animation formed an abstract – but recognisable – impression of Prague’s heritage. The sound design was done by Han Suzi, a long-time collaborator of Seohyo’s. A composer, and member of audio-visual groups Collective Pusil and Form and Sound, Suzi focuses on the connection between image and audio, exploring stillness versus motion.
“This work transforms Prague’s architectural heritage into a living, breathing tapestry, demonstrating the limitless possibilities of using code as a medium,” concludes Seohyo. “Every visual element interacts with others through randomised variations with parameters, creating an ever-changing visual rhythm. The integration of sound serves to further enhance the urban and historical themes, making the piece a multi-sensory experience.”
Shifting structures
Also at Prague Castle Riding School, we went to observe Filip Hodas’ Eternal Recurrence, a large-scale video mapping created for the Archbishop’s Palace that depicts the origin and evolution of live.
Hodas is known for combining reality and fiction through computer modelling, exploring themes like pop culture, digital media and consumerism, often with a melancholic feel. His art has gained a global fanbase, leading to collaborations with brands like Adidas and Coca-Cola, as well as artists like Jean-Michel Jarre. His works have gone viral online and been featured in Times Square and galleries such as the Tate Modern. In 2023, his piece Never-ending Cycle was auctioned at Sotheby’s.
Eternal Recurrence was certainly one of Signal’s star performers, and attracted large crowds to the cobbled courtyard in front of the grand building it was being projected upon. The piece starts with chaotic molecular stages, evolving into complex organic structures that mimic natural growth patterns. As the life forms become more intricate, their growth accelerates until it reaches a peak, ultimately collapsing back into the singularity: a return to the beginning.
The work seeks to question the linearity of time versus the cyclical nature of natural processes, echoing themes of philosophy and spirituality. Music and sound design were delivered by Pavel Ridoško, also known as Rido, and were an unmissable feature of the work – with the blaring and pulsating beats and notes feeling as though they were vibrating your very bones.
A prominent Czech drum and bass producer and DJ, Rido also composes film music, working on projects like Westworld and Milada. He co-wrote music for the play Élektra, which was nominated for the 2018 Theatre Critic Award, and contributes to the Let It Roll festival’s opening show. He is currently finishing the music for a new film by Marek Najbrt.
Sending a message
After seeing Eternal Recurrence, we hopped into a cab and headed over to the Municipal Library of Prague to check out Spanish/Danish duo Desilence’s The Rhythm of the Ocean. The creative partnership consists of Tatiana Halbach and Søren Christensen; Desilence is their multidisciplinary studio that has been creating audio-visual performances, art installations and projection scenography for musical and dance performances since 2005.
Desilence profess a love of painting and movement, the beauty hidden in a nascent idea and having the diligence to achieve balance. They combine research and creativity with careful attention to detail and elaboration of the creative processes of each project.
Video mapping developed by the duo for the Municipal Library at 2024’s Signal is a monumental, dynamic fresco that depicts processes and rhythms in the depths of the ocean. Desilence invites viewers on a journey beyond the dark undercurrents that carry away vital resources at regular intervals.
“It’s always scary when you do video mapping in city centres because light pollution can kill the contrast and the colour can look washed out,” highlights Søren Christensen, the Danish half of Desilence. “When we spoke to the guys at Signal, and having used Christie Digital projectors previously, when they mentioned getting them in we really pushed for that, as the colours are absolutely unbelievable.”
Getting the colours right for The Rhythm of the Ocean in particular was of paramount importance. The projection was a visual concert and a dance riot of colours, accompanied by sound design from the analogue synthesiser of American musician Suzanne Ciani. Viewers are offered a captivating display of one of the most important factors in maintaining the balance of climatic parameters – necessary for maintaining living conditions on the planet – as a wild and unbridled element. Paradoxically, keeping the balance relies on having constant movement.
Five-time Grammy Award nominee, and pioneer of electronic and synthetic music, Suzanne Ciani is one of the most distinctive creators of contemporary music. She composes and plays using the Buchla synthesiser, created in the sixties by Don Buchla.
Peppered among the swirling mass of colours was an array of powerful facts and statements relating to plastics in the ocean, such as ‘Plastics in the ocean are out of control’ and ‘Small changes can make waves of difference’.
“We like to do abstract visuals,” explains Christensen, “and it might be that you have some kind of message. But sometimes you have to be a little more literal – and Signal is an incredible opportunity to do this, with over 500,000 people passing through.
“It was especially interesting because after Signal we got a lot of feedback over social media, with people saying they didn’t know about plastic islands and how it would cost less to clean them up than what the US spends on Halloween decorations each year.”
When asked about the significance of the recent rise in digital festivals like Signal, Tatiana Halbach replies: “Events like Signal offer artists a city-sized canvas on which to project their art, and I think more events like these are going to become ingrained in the culture of our times. This is because the technology is growing really fast as well.”
Dancing with digital
The last stop on our Signal tour was the Clam-Gallas Palace. This is where multimedia and multi-genre theatre Laterna Magika presented Iron Horse: Fractured. This installation stood out from the others in that it featured live actors and dancers in the windows of the building, who were interacting – through their choreography – with the scenes being projected.
Laterna Magika’s unique approach to theatrical poetics has earned it a global reputation. Its basic principles, including the interactive connection between film projection, movement and acting, have gradually been complemented by fresh technologies such as digital projection and new media, including real-time programmable software. Its projects merge genres through dance, voice, words, music and visual elements – which are its unique expressions.
Viewers of Iron Horse: Fractured became passengers on a platform, watching the characters’ stories unfold through the windows of passing trains. The limited perspective created senses of fate, voyeurism and suspense, drawing the audience into private moments and inviting them to imagine and shape the story themselves. The train symbolised the flow of time and the twists of life, highlighting fleeting glimpses of the world that often go by unnoticed.
Festivals of the future
The increasing appearance of events like Signal reflect the international cultural shift towards digital art forms.
“Events like Signal Festival are essential for promoting digital art and providing a platform to showcase immersive works in public spaces,” emphasises Seohyo. “These festivals allow artists to connect with a more diverse audience, including those who might not usually engage with art, which helps to foster broader conversations and appreciation.
“For the artists, such events offer opportunities to experiment with scale, public engagement and site-specific installations – elements that are difficult to explore in a traditional gallery setting. These festivals spotlight the evolving relationship between art, technology and urban spaces, which is critical for driving greater collaboration and innovation in the digital art field.”
Learn more about how technology is shaping other immersive art experiences including the Portals exhibit here.
This feature was first published in the Jan/Feb 2025 issue of LIVE.
