Metaphors of Nature: Galerie Kuzebauch at Collect 2020
During its second visit to Collect 2020 in London, Galerie Kuzebauch will showcase exceptional pieces of Czech studio glass created mainly by a generation of artists born after the 1970s who draw inspiration from nature. The exhibition highlights a creative trend in glassmaking inspired by and stemming from the natural world, primarily landscape and geology. The forces of nature are a source of inspiration – the captured movements of waves and winds and the stillness of a frozen landscape in winter. The aesthetic world of glass making reflects geological transformations and natural forces which remain forever imprinted in the cooled surface of each individual piece.
AI Science Café Series 2020: Conversational AI. With Jan Šedivý
Intelligent speakers have been one of the rapidly evolving areas in AI. We will describe the Alquist social chatbot designed by the Czech Technical University team of students under the leadership of Jan Šedivý. Jan will briefly review the competition and its primary motivations. But his main focus will be on the Alquist team’s expertise, which embraces several disciplines, such as Conversational AI, Dialogue Management, Linguistics, Audio design, Creative writing, and many more. Jan will also explain the development of the dialogues for favourite conversational topics. Finally he will discuss the plans of how to turn Alquist into a product.
The Painted Bird - Preview & UK release
Václav Marhoul’s cinematic masterpiece follows the journey of a boy, entrusted by his Jewish parents to an elderly foster mother in an effort to escape persecution. Wandering through the desecrated countryside, the boy encounters villagers and soldiers whose own lives have been brutally altered, and who are intent on revisiting this brutality on him. An unflinching examination of the very worst of humanity it features a staggering central performance from the young Petr Kotlár alongside a star-studded international ensemble including Udo Kier, Stellan Skarsgård, Harvey Keitel, Julian Sands and Barry Pepper. Premiered at the Venice International Film Festival, the film has won ecstatic acclaim.
Bye Bye Shanghai + Q&A with Jana Boková and Henrietta Foster
Comparing making a film about exile to a highly painful but necessary visit to the dentist, Bokova, herself an émigrée, sets out to explore various aspects of emigration, its effect on people’s lives and the impossibility of stepping into the same river twice. As one of her protagonist says: “You return to your 30s but everyone around you is 60.“ Moving betwen the streets of Prague, Paris and Buenos Aires and talking to a fascinating variety of émigrés such as philosopher Vaclav Belohradsky who left because of the 1968 Soviet Invasion; singer songwriter Vlasta Tresnak, endlessly interrogated and tortured by the state secret police, who had to choose between prison and emigration; poet and translator Petr Kral reflecting upon the mechanism of totalitarian power, Bokova builds a captivating documentary essay about home, the world and staying in those fictious spaces. And about friends.
