We are living in a time of transformation of the human body into a liquid digital mass, affecting every aspect of our lives. Our digital entities roam cyberspace, and create their own enclaves where each virtual self constantly yearns to present itself well. We become the subjects of embodied fantasies in which we can be someone else entirely – forever, for a time, or just for a post.

The thirteenth installment of the Fotograf Festival, named HYPERTENSION23, and its eponymous exhibition at the Trade Fair Palace of the National Gallery in Prague, deal with the tension in our minds caused by technologies that expose our attention to the constant visual pressure to notice something, to experience it emotionally, and react. Photography demands to be liked, video to be seen, a hashtag to be categorized immediately. The day becomes a to-do list which shrinks our perception of time. It becomes globally fluid in the metaverse.

The exhibition HYPERTENSION23, working with the medical term for high blood pressure, looks at contemporary visuality as something which primarily wishes to gain attention and somehow provoke a reaction. At the same time, the project seeks a new identity for the human being, whose original self is abstracted by digital space. It has taught us to think in new ways about ourselves and humanity surrounded by a vision of a technological singularity, where general artificial intelligence will surpass the capabilities of humanity.

The author of the concept and curator of the exhibition at the Trade Fair Palace is Monika Čejková. The theme of hypertension is also treated in an exhibition at the Fotograf Gallery by curator Tina Poliačková. Furthermore, the festival theme will be extended to the public space, where a visual essay by Shumon Basar, Hans Ulrich Obrist and Douglas Coupland will be presented in the exhibition space in an underpass of the metro B line and on the facade of the Trade Fair Palace.