Let There Be Light! The Countdown to Signal Festival 2018 Begins

Bigger and better than ever before, the sixth-annual Signal Festival features a new route in Karlín

Katrina Modrá

Written by Katrina Modrá Published on 02.10.2018 10:23:56 (updated on 02.10.2018) Reading time: 3 minutes

Culture

Signal, the festival of light, has become an essential part of autumn in Prague. From October 11 to 14, this dazzling four-day-long event will light up eight districts of the Czech capital with 24 luminous installations courtesy of Czech and international artists.

The sixth-annual festival will focus on Czech artists and the next 100 years of the Czech Republic.

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Visitors to the festival will be able to explore light, static, site-specific, 3D, and interactive installations, projections and video mapping via three main routes – in the city center, Vinohrady, and, new this year, Karlín.

Festival director Martin Pošta says: “The purpose of having more routes was to relieve crowds from Prague 1. We want to show people new places, which is why we have moved 3D video mapping to Kasárna Karlín.”

The majority of the installations will be placed in public spaces, lighting up churches, squares, palaces, chapels, orchards, and even parts of the Vltava River. Five installations will form a gallery zone, which will be accessible for a fee. The sixth year will also see a shorter festival duration, from 7pm to 11pm.


Those who prefer a more intimate atmosphere can visit satellites installations away from the main routes, or the gallery zone with installations inside significant buildings.

Four satellite installations located away from the main routes will light up selected spaces in Dejvice, Letná, Anděl, and Pankrác. At Na Knížecí, for example, discover a colorful projection of a mosaic made of 269 road signs collected in the streets of Prague that can be manipulated by visitors.

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The gallery zone, extended this year by a fifth installation, will lead through the Colloredo-Mansfeld Palace, the Mirror Chapel in Klementinum, Clam-Gallas Palace, Hauch Gallery, and Bar/ák, a hidden courtyard-bar by the Florenc metro station.

2018 Signal Festival Highlights

Old Town

  • Heaven on Earth will take the visitors from the hall of the Clam-Gallas Palace up to the skies, right into the epicenter of a heavy storm.
  • Old Town Square will feature a film-sculpture where the core of the installation is a bisected car.
  • Ivan Kafka, a site-specific installation pioneer, brings his work, a series of signs, to Ovocný Trh.

Vinohrady

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  • The popular route leading through Prague 2 and 3 will introduce 7 diverse installations, including traditional video mapping at Náměstí Míru.
  • Obraz, a non-for-profit organization will build dozens of metal cages with bulbs and narrow passages for visitors to Svatopluk Čech’s orchards, to spread awareness of the breeding of farm animals in the 21st century.
  • At Jiřího z Poděbrad Square visitors will find themselves under the surveillance of  a dystopian installation created for the Signal festival by XYZ Project.
  • Another part of this route leading through Žižkov will take the visitors to an early baroque Atrium for Michal Škapa’s Neon objects exhibit (on view until February 2019).

Karlín

  • At Kasárna Karlín, see 3D audiovisual mapping Biofilms by a creative studio from Basque, Hotaru Visual Guerrila, inspired by the concept of using microorganisms as building materials.
  • At Hauch Gallery Swiss artist Zimoun, will unveil a monumental work, reacting to the tension between orderly patterns and the chaos of life (on view for a week after the festival ends).
  • French artist Romain Tardy will lighten up the Karlínské Square with his site-specific installation Future Ruins, inspired by the architecture of the St. Syril and Methodius church.

The entrance fee to all five spaces of the gallery zone is CZK 170 for adults and CZK 100 for students and seniors. There will also be a CZK 50 fee to enter the 3D audiovisual mapping in Kasárna Karlín.

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Accompanying Musical Program

Signal is joining forces with Prague’s Strings of Autumn classical music festival this year to create Organic, a brand new project taking place in the Church of St. Salvator. It will combine a live organ concert with a kinetic light installation.

The Signal festival of light is one of the most highly anticipated cultural events in the Czech Republic, which, due to its unique interconnection of art, urban space,and modern technologies, has attracted over 1.5 million spectators to Prague in the course of its five years of existence.

Around 500,000 visitors are expected to attend once again this year.

The opening ceremony will take place on October 11 at 7:00 p.m. in Karlínské Square.

Visit the official festival website to plan your 2018 Signal experience.

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