Daniel Vlček is a cross-media artist whose work straddles the boundaries of painting, sound, installation, and performance. In his work, he explores the phenomenon of interference as a principle of interaction between images, materials, technologies, and the environment. He examines how acoustic, biological, and technological signals intertwine, amplify, and disrupt one another, and translates these dynamics into visual and auditory forms.

His artistic practice oscillates between abstraction, systems thinking, and experimentation. Through biofeedback, cross-media translation, field recordings, and physical traces of time and process, he creates extensive painting series and sound installations that interweave painting with industrial structures, textiles, vinyl records, and fragments of tires. The characteristic moiré patterns created by mechanically engraving into layers of paint evoke digital noise, analog interference, and hidden data structures.

In Daniel Vlček’s work, sound does not merely accompany the image but functions as its parallel interpretation and extension. His compositions combine analog synthesizers, tape loops, and digital technologies, while repetition and the physical ritual of creation remain central to his work, oscillating between control and intuition.

Daniel Vlček studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Prague, the Faculty of Fine Arts at Brno University of Technology, and the Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera in Milan. He co-founded the art-activist group Guma Guar and later the Ferdinand Baumann Gallery and Berlinskej Model. He plays in the hardcore punk band Střešovická Kramle and, together with Ewelina Vlček Chiu, he forms the audiovisual duo Ba:zel, which, among other things, has performed František Kupka’s sound works at exhibitions at the Grand Palais in Paris and the National Gallery in Prague. He has presented his work at exhibitions in the Czech Republic and abroad, including in Venice, Brussels, Vienna, Berlin, and New York.

The opening will be followed by a concert by Ai fen at Zlín Castle.

Ai fen is the alias of Ewelina Ai-fen Vlček-Chiu, a Chinese-Polish musician, composer, and producer based in Prague. Ai fen released her debut album postforever in February 2020. The album received positive reviews for its unique approach to experimental pop, which “breaks down genres, boundaries, and identities” (The Brvtalist). Ai fen released her second studio album Daily Grief on the Vienna-based label Tender Matter. Daily Grief was praised by critics for its “orchestral folk elements” and “mesmerizing vocals” (HighClouds) and seen as an evolution of the restrained minimalism of her debut album postforever. After a three-year hiatus, Ai fen returns with her third studio album I’ve Been a Body.

The album shifts away from sophisticated electronic production toward expansive, piano-driven compositions that break apart and expand into vast swaths of drone and screech, exploring the decision every biological woman faces, whether she likes it or not—to be or not to be a mother? Of the entire spectrum of sociopolitical pressures on the female body, motherhood—historically inextricably linked to a woman’s identity as such, and thus to her sense of self-worth and purpose in life—is perhaps the most striking. The decision to become a mother is a privilege, and the decision to not be one is a right.