Jiří Kaňák
Mythology of Machines
18. 6. – 13. 7. 2025
opening: 17. 6. 2025 from 6 PM
curator: Jiří Sirůček
Where did the idea of artificial intelligence – robots or machines - originate? According to science historian and folklorist Adrienne Mayor, we mistakenly date the origins of automated devices to the Middle Ages, when the first self-propelled tools, clockworks and primitive automatons were assembled. But if we look into ancient myths, we can see that the idea of ‘artificial life’ is not unknown to the human imagination. On the contrary, it was present in culture long before technological knowledge made it possible to realize it. In a similar vein, Jiří Kaňák's exhibition Mythology of Machines offers us an alternative genealogy of modern technology - not as a product of modernisation, but as a continuation of ancient thought patterns and ideas. It shows how myths about artificial life, machines and tools have persisted for almost three thousand years and how they materialize in today's algorithmic landscapes.
The creations of the Greek god of blacksmithing and fire, Hephaestus, cannot be understood purely as the results of supernatural power or magic: Already in Homer we find references to their technological nature. The huge iron automaton Talos, guarding the coast of Crete, Apollo's divine arrows that never miss their target, the golden robotic dogs guarding Alkinoos' palace and Pandora, made of clay and water, the ‘gift’ to Prometheus' brother Epimetheus with which Zeus sought revenge on mankind. In antiquity, these instruments (machines) were seen as indomitable, practical or destructive prostheses. They were used to monitor and eliminate threats or to perform heavy manual labor. In this respect, the mythical (bio)technologies are not that far off our present. In fact, Talos is not much different from the huge (war) machines of societies of control, which, with the threat of violence, monitor and scan the outside world; celestial arrows or guard dogs resemble autonomous mobile robots and drones. And what resembles more an appealing and simultaneously destructive gift than the ubiquitous media that, under the guise of accessible entertainment and services, collects data and uses it against us. As Marie Antoinette's slot machine, which guides us through videos placed on a crude metal structure, accurately describes: "You see us as something new that can be inserted into a timeline. But you forget that you have dreamed of us from the beginning."
Mythology of Machines shows that technology is an ancient and integral part of our cultural imagination. In the exhibition, therefore, it does not merely figure as a theme, but manifests as distinct actors participating in the form of the presented works: The narrator of the story is the generated voice of the aforementioned automaton Marie Antoinette; lightboxes and videos appropriate footage or photographs available online; and the digital face and object recognition detector YOLOv8 transports the mythical clash between Talos and the Argonauts to the age of algorithmic surveillance. The relief moulded on aluminium then formally responds to the parallel between typewriters and CNC machine tools, which identically perform mechanical creative work based on predefined instructions. But while anthropomorphized machines draw images on paper according to instructions, automated milling machines subjugate solid metal plates into which they coldly engrave pre-selected scenes. The change in intensity, however, does not obscure the fact that the principle remains constant throughout history. Jiří Kaňák's exhibition Mythology of Machines invites us to abandon the belief in progress as a linear way forward. It reminds us that not only the idea of artificial life and intelligence, but also the ways in which they can be misused, have always accompanied humanity. Power - as the myths and the present show - does not belong to those who rule, but to those who control the technology.
Jiří Sirůček
transl. Vanda Krutsky
The program of the Jeleni Gallery is possible through kind support of Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, Prague City Council, State Fund of Culture of the Czech Republic, City District Prague 7,
GESTOR – The Union for the Protection of Authorship
Media partners: ArtMap, artalk.cz, jlbjlt.net, ArtRevue, Radio 1
