Daniela Sneppová
born: 7. 1. 1963 in Mariánské Lázně
graduate: M. F. A. Master of Fine Arts, University of Windsor, Windsor, Ontario, Canada
address: 59 Upper Ave, London, Ontario, Canada, N6H 2L6
e-mail: dsneppov@uwo.ca; daniela_cz@hotmail.com
Voice is the physical manifestation of existence. Recorded voice is a bridge across borders between presence and absence. Mikulov, a small town shining atop a hill, attracts artists every summer to the solitary mood and scope. The chateau contains a model of history. The first night of my stay, alone in the chateau, everything, me including, locked up and the key emphasized the feeling of seclusion, isolation and a particular perception of time. The moment the sun sets, the stone walls cool off and grow damp. The chateau guard stormed my room shortly after midnight. My motions were intercepted by sensors, which was something the guardians could not explain. Their lights pierced the night and when they left, I saw things in the shade; I listened to the inexplicable sounds of the building. They had warned me that the White Lady strolls through the area. Her life here was full of suffering, solitude and seclusion. The local museum, small but rich, has a statue of a woman’s bust under a veil. I know it’s not meant to represent the legendary woman but for me, the white marble, worked with a delicate balance between the detail and poetry, hid what it did represent. As history in the many of its manifestations, there are only traces of the past. The bust speaks powerfully of the plea and absence; it reminded me of the legend of the White Lady and my own version of her probable story. Old buildings, especially those rented for history, emptiness and desolation, have always attracted me. We often get involved in the process of interpreting history. An empty building has its own stories. I imagine stories the walls could tell. Recounting absence is a form of detective work; returning elements back in the space and imitate, invoke a different understanding, to revive the space. Sound travels through space; it touches my body in a way that cannot be ignored – no possibility to close the connection. The chateau bar was a deserted place, an area with 1970s decorations, long benches coated with red velvet, inlaid windows and communist-style colourful glazing behind the bar – it seemed like a filming scene waiting for the filmmakers. Thick layers of dust on the tables and an atmosphere that brings back traces of people from the past. History talks, history is people, to hear a voice of the past means listening to history, be it just imaginary. We connect to sound in a different way to the ways we use our other senses. We hear something and we imagine the source of the sound. The relation between sound and vision is interesting. The room was full of people but empty. The bar was noisy but without human bodies that usually make noise. Conversations were replaced with recorded sound, edited together. I asked people to talk about how they understand andwhat their relation is to words that are often abused (as well as banal and serious words): space, love, freedom and time. Their voices got mixed together and soaked through, creating a resemblance of conversation. The sound recording was placed in the bar and it filled the space with interviews. I left Mikulov with the sound and vision in the trunk and a part of my own history interlocked with histories of the others.
Daniela Sneppová
Time, from the series Time, Love, Space, Freedom
photograph, sound, 50 x 50 cm, 2002
List of artists participating in MAS "dílna" in 1994–2010
