Extraterrestrial Archaeology: A Probe into the Myth of Hyperreality
Annotation:
The art installation titled Myth of Hyperreality, created by contemporary Czech artist Jan Poš in 2025, is the main topic of the text. The installation combines a physical object (a porcelain sculpture inspired by the shape of a cracked meteorite) with a digital visualization comprising sound and light elements. The multimedia artwork deliberately blurs the borderline between sculpture and digital image, examining the eroded boundaries between real and virtual environments. The concepts of hyperreality (as conceived by Jean Baudrillard) and myth, which Poš explicitly explores in his recent works, form the interpretation basis. The artist presents hyperreality as a synthesis of reality and virtuality, whose material manifestation veils reality. Mythology enhances the hyperrealist framework with imaginative and elusive phenomena that are impossible to comprehend empirically and cognitively. The installation evokes a futuristic fragmentary artefact or a technological ruin but also symbolises possible forms of extraterrestrial life. Balancing on the edge of scientific visualization and mythopoetic articulation of reality, the piece of art questions the rational perception of technology. The Myth of Hyperreality thus transcends a mere aesthetic object; indeed, it serves as an experimental laboratory, where a speculative landscape is tested and outlined by means of a quasi-research strategy. The viewers are drawn into a situation of fictional archaeological exploration, which provides a platform for contemplating the relationship among humans, technology, and timeless cosmic dimensions. In his work, Poš shows that contemporary art can serve as a tool for speculative knowledge and a means for unsettling the established concepts of reality.
Modular Hyperreality
The monumental object seems to levitate in space. The static organic form is disrupted with a LED screen, which breaks the perceived phenomenon down into fragments. The integrity and stability is further disturbed by the modular structure, the water surface, and the lightweight pedestal formed of subtle lines growing out of the object. Liquid Hyperreality.
Jan Poš employs the medium of sculpture as the fundament of his artistic practice, yet challenges its physical form by the insertion of new technologies. He thus deconstructs the modernist conception of sculpture, whose essence Clement Greenberg perceived primarily in the third dimension. Depth, modelling of volume extending into space, specific materials, and the illusion of a plastic body were considered the fundamens of the sculptural medium. Poš disturbs this pure concept by partially obscuring certain aspects and utilizing new materials (especially digital technologies), getting closer to the redefinition of the term by Rosalind Krauss, who has extended the traditional and modernist interpretation to include postmodern trends:
“The field provides both for an expanded but finite set of related positions for a given artist to occupy and explore, and for an organization of work that is not dictated by the conditions of a particular medium. [...]within any one of the positions generated by the given logical space, many different mediums might be employed.”
Nonetheless, the concept of hyperreality, as coined by Jean Baudrillard in the 1980s in his treatise Simulacra and Simulations (1981), prevails in the work of Jan Poš, who transforms the matter of the sculpture and its perception in his work. While Baudrillard accentuates “models of a real without origin or reality” (being precisely the birth points of hyperreality), Poš examines the hybrid and fluid relationship between reality and virtuality, thereby constructing the hyperreal experience. The intertwining virtual (online) and real (offline) elements in his work further attest to the inadequacy of binary perception and the shift towards a merger into an all-encompassing, pulsating whole.
The Myth of Hyperreality (2025) combines a virtual digital space created through 3D modelling and LED screens with a tangible object installed in space. The work consists of several parts: the central static object, which is held in space with the support of lab holders, and a moving image, which shatters and remediates the object. The sculpture stands above a water surface, which absorbs and multiplies the object, and it is complemented with a sound component. Last but not least, the distinctive illumination of the object using projectors enhances the experience of the optically levitating shape. Now, we shall focus on the central object of the installation.
The organic shape simulates a cracked meteorite. However, its final form is not based on a purely empirical object (a real meteorite), but rather results from digital modelling and subsequent 3D print. In the first phase, primary source compositions were created with the use of simulations and mathematical options in the Blender computer program. These intangible virtual elements were subsequently materialised in the process of making the plaster moulds into which the porcelain was subsequently cast. Clay was indeed used by ancient civilizations to produce various items. The material of which the object is made thus bears a pre-modern imprint, which connects the times and societies past and present and ensures continuity. Moreover, ceramics is frequently used in space shuttle protective shells, precisely for its resistance to extremely high temperatures. This makes the artwork a prime example of a combination of the space theme, the state-of-the-art technology, and an ancient and available material. The hexagonal layout of the shapes combined in Blender derives both from the mathematical simplification of the object in the digital program environment and from the organic environment. In chemical terms, the hexagon represents the basic building molecule – carbon. It also forms the pattern of bees’ honeycombs. The final form thus crystallizes from the above-described synthesis of reality and simulation, organic and inorganic, where reality is completely obstructed with hyperreality.
Although the organic, amorphous form of the object shows no figurative elements, it is actually based on a loose composition of clustered figures that resemble human beings. Yet these humanoids do not represent any specific people but rather suggest the possible existence of different forms of extraterrestrial life.
The virtual environment in Blender allows to break down an object into individual parts, which can be in turn stacked and combined in various ways. This process explores the concept of modularity as formulated by Lev Manovich. Modularity consists of elements “that are assembled into larger-scale objects but continue to maintain their separate identities. The objects themselves can be combined into even larger objects – again, without losing their independence.” The modularity of the virtual space transcends into the physical object, whose surface is cracked and fragmented. Through this method, Poš aims to evoke the aesthetics of archaeology, where a fragmented artefact is being analysed and put together. The missing parts refer to the fact that the process is indeterminate, just like humans are incapable of fully comprehending the world in its complexity. Willi-nilly, we have to accept that our knowledge will always be fragmented. Nonetheless, Poš simultaneously vests a speculative future in the object by means of the archaeological method. The futuristic and alien aesthetic resembles a technological ruin assembled by the artist by means of speculative research practice. The silver coating of the porcelain structure further enhances the ultra-modern, industrial look. The silver surface both mirrors and absorbs the surrounding environment. It disrupts the uniform material and density of porcelain, thus increasing the intangible feel of the object. Abandoning the porcelain aesthetic marks the artist’s focus on the very borderline and surface of the form, following from the logic of 3D programs, where shapes are defined by a mesh of points that outline the object contours. The real organic world and imaginative extraterrestrial object are thus gradually overshadowed by the simulacrum of hyperrealistic modulation, which Poš reflects in his work.
The Mythological Plane
Myth forms another concept present in The Myth of Hyperreality. Theory attributes a wide range of meaning to the term. Poš understands mythology as a set of stories and symbols that allows us to comprehend the complex and abstract processes accompanying phenomena that are difficult to explain through logic or by use of a scientific method. In this sense, the common pejorative interpretation of myth as a false story and fabrication becomes irrelevant. On the contrary, in this sense, the myth allows the artist to explore situations transcending our empirical and cognitive experience. Unlike Barth, who sees myth primarily as a means of communication (i.e. a form of sign) in modern society, Poš perceives myth through transcendence manifested in symbolic form, which balances on the edge of subjugation and lack of control. As Percy S. Cohen puts it, “myths make use of the language of metaphor and that metaphor is used by primitive man to personalize the forces of the natural world which he seeks to understand and control.” A myth connects the lived reality, which we can grasp through our sensorimotor and cognitive skills, with the absence of an empirical object, which escapes our sensory senses (information flow, energy, magnetic fields) or is inexistent in our lived reality (extraterrestrial forms of life). Moreover, mythological thinking is commonly juxtaposed to scientific, or rational reasoning. The positivist perception of digital technologies is indeed based on such rational, objective, and exact approach. Poš, on the other hand, turns to myth not only as a creative tool to bridge the empirically and cognitively known with the unknown and elusive, but also as a means to challenge the positivist framework of technologies.
By explicitly merging the virtual space (the space of the LED panel and digital visualization) with the real space (the porcelain artefact), the artist uncovers and reflects one of the myths of contemporary technologies – the alleged immateriality of the virtual environment. As Jussi Parikka reminds us, data (information) has its basis in a material substrate and its existence is conditioned by a rich material component. This substrate comprises an intricate network of bodies: hardware (minerals, metals...), human and animal bodies it has extracted, natural resources (e.g., water needed to cool data centres), etc. The Myth of Hyperreality disturbs the duality of the material and the immaterial by establishing a close link between the digital analogue spaces.
Apart from the direct manifestation of the virtual environment in the form of the porcelain artefact, this tendency is clearly reflected in the moving, digital image. The LED screen is composed of smaller panels and deviates from the ordinary formats of ordinary visual display units. In fact, the size of the panels does not allow to capture the whole outline of the porcelain object. The screen is moving along a predetermined axis, scanning and analysing the object, which is static by nature. Consequently, the image thus created can never visualise the total object volume. In this piece, the image does not play the role of a traditional pictorial medium (representation, mimetic). Rather, its detection function corresponds to the rearticulation of image by Harun Farocki, who employs the term “operational image” to define technological images. The latter term refers to images “that do not represent an object, but rather are part of an operation.”While in the installation, the LED image serves to visualize the imperceptible movements and transformations within a seemingly fixed object, its operational function is mirrored in the act of monitoring and quasi-scientific exploration. Furthermore, the viewers are confronted with super-human visual mode analogous to the machine vision system, where reality is translated into numerical code. The interplay of the digital code with the porcelain artefact deconstructs the clear boundary between the intangible and tangible components.
The technology present in the installation further acts as a mythopoetic (or myth-making) tool. The LED panel reveals the aspects of the object that escape our sensorimotor perception, thus overcoming the boundary between things perceived, things known, and things ungraspable but by means of the technological mediation. Poš himself describes the LED screen as a scientific instrument. He thus consciously cultivates the aura of an objective, rational truth about the world as normally construed by the exact, technologically supported scientific method. Yet technologies are not mere neutral tools that would transparently interpret the world for us, but rather active actors that modify the world and our relationship to it. Their language classifies, measures, and defines everything around us according to numerical logic, and consequently reduces the complex existence to a set of definable and calculable units. It is precisely this myth-making nature of the technological apparatus that Poš accentuates in his work. The uncovering we observe on the screen display simultaneously implies obscuring of dimensions that the machine cannot capture and measure.
Last but not least, the technological aspect of the work deconstructs the seeming immortality of the themes Poš tackles. In his practice, the artist does not attempt to address current socio-cultural, political or economic issues, not does he aim to comment on current events, whether national or foreign. Timeless phenomena are the focal point of his artwork – celestial bodies, phenomena transcending humans, the question of time, and historical artefacts. Among the reasons behind his choice of modern technologies for his artistic take on the aforementioned motifs is their accelerated obsolescence. A tension thus raises between the infinite cosmic ontology and the epistemological plane of technologies with potentially short expiry dates. Accordingly, we can speculate whether the cracked meteorite is in fact a fossil coming from a distant future, where nothing has remained of humanity but technological rubbish.
The Imagination of Speculative Research
Scientific research has been mentioned above several times. Indeed, a scientific approach defined by objectivity, rationality, and strict mathematical order relates to the earlier work of Jan Poš, where the artist explored uniform geometric shapes, which he subsequently multiplied into sets, series, and systems. These practices build on the Czech artistic trends applied in the second half of the 20th century (Poš specifically mentions Karel Malich and Václav Cigler). Both aforementioned creators consciously deconstructed purely rational tendencies to embrace metaphysical phenomena (Malich explored energy flows and cosmological spirituality, while Cigler created light objects inspired by spirituality and Christianity). The sublimation of the borderline between scientific knowledge and subjective, mythological playfulness has gradually seeped into Poš's objects and installations.
The architecture of the installation, conceived as a quasi-scientific environment, indeed builds on this ideological background. The viewers are invited into an ongoing archaeological exploration, which transcends the known world. The bottom layer of the installation, i.e. the water component, underscores this mechanism. Like the polished surface of the silver object, the water surface captures and reflects the phenomena unfolding above and disrupts the ordinary perception of space. The supporting structure plays a key role in transforming the exhibition space into an allusion of a scientific laboratory. Its form is inspired by laboratory stands and museum hanging systems. These normally ignored aids complement the complex network of research activities and actors, here serving to hold and present the exhibit. The subtle construction stands in juxtaposition to the dense sculpture volume, penetrating and momentarily growing through the object. In the installation, the laboratory aid - commonly considered an insignificant accessory to the scientific activity - forms a visually inherent part of the central artefact. Notable is also the sophisticated variability of the structure from the functional viewpoint, being swiftly adjustable to support objects of varied forms in different positions. This dynamic element connects the structure to the object modularity and illustrates the need for infinite exploration of the artefact. The lightness of the design also reflects the anti-gravity dimension of 3D programs, where physical laws cease to apply by default. The simulated weightlessness absorbs and balances the gravitational heaviness of lived existence.
The vector of Poš’s artistic situations is directed towards fictional environments, which he creates using modern technological apparatuses. The artist subjects these environments and objects to speculative research, wherein they escape the strict rationality of constructivist solutions. Instead of searching for universal truths and absolute answers, his research imagination challenges the established concepts of reality. The Myth of Hyperreality perfectly fits in this orbit as one of the possible artistic expressions of the indeterminate direction.
Denisa Michalinová
Literature
- Roland BARTHES, Mythologies, The Noonday Press 1991
- Jean BAUDRILLARD, Simulacra and Simulations, The University of Michigan Press 1994
- Jay David BOLTER – Richard GRUSIN, Remediation: Understanding New Media, Cambridge 1999
- Federico CAMPAGNA, Technic and Magic: The Reconstruction of Reality, Bloomsbury Academic 2018
- Percy S. COHEN, Theories of Myth, The Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute, Vol. 14, No. 3, 1969, pp. 337-353
- Harun FAROCKI, Phantom Images, Public 29, 2004, pp. 13-22
- Clement GREENBERG, Modernist Painting, in: Francis FRASCINA – Charles HARRISON (eds.), Modern Art and Modernism: A Critical Anthology, Harper Row 1982, pp. 5-10
- Rosalind KRAUSS, Sculpture in the Expanded Field, October, Vol. 8, Spring, 1979, p. 43 (30-44)
- Lev MANOVICH, The Language of New Media, Massachusetts: The MIT Press 2001
- Jussi PARIKKA, Geologie médií [The Geology of Media], Prague: Karolinum 2020