A few months ago one of my friends tagged me in the comments of a post by this Italian guy. My friends and I tend to wander across stranger more absurd places on social media than the typical person would. This is both a blessing and a curse. But as luck would happen, this was a blessing on my Timeline, this is how I discovered Petr Válek. I can’t remember the specific post I saw first, because I avidly watch all his stuff, but I do clearly remember the confusion it caused me. Petr takes what I imagine to be rubbish he discovers on the streets and dump sites, then fuses them into sculptures that move and generate “””music”””. I put heavy quotation on music because at first glance it does appear to be just pure noise. But with every new post I saw I began to understand this was more than just a guy who created absurd and useless machines. This was an artist trying to express himself and create what he viewed as music.
On the surface it appears as though he is mad and manic, but I don’t believe the surface portrays what is going on within him. His work displays a consistent theme and trend of madness and absurdity, but it feels methodical. In one video he even shows a diagram drawn before creating one of his pieces (thought it was crude, it still displayed he is thinking before he makes. I think he uses these expressions of noise to unleash what he is feeling. To me at least the work appears to come from someone who is too high functioning to just be bits and bobs created without intention. When watching Petr’s videos it occurred to me that when he is thinking about his creations he is concerned just as much about the sculpture as he is the noise it creates. The sculptures intentionally created to look like horror machines and rubbish, to reflect the noise they create, or maybe even the opposite, or symbiotically both. Another observation that supports my hypothesis is that Petr does incorporate instruments into some of his creations, and he shows to have a proficiency with them. Much like how I am taking old videos and remixing them into something fresh and new, I believe Petr is on a similar quest, but with sound. Trying to create new noises and sounds by distorting ‘classical instruments (as in other to what he creates)’ and absorbing them into something new. Petr Válek will come to be very important in the next few decades, or I hope so at least.
some of his recent work I enjoy:
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2659306770974084&id=100006843614951
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2660410154197079&id=100006843614951
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2663919843846110&id=100006843614951
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2515420705362692&id=100006843614951
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2671448463093248&id=100006843614951
https://www.facebook.com/permalink.php?story_fbid=2675984359306325&id=100006843614951
Petr Válek:
https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=100006843614951
