Gregor Petrikovič

Through the medium of moving image and sound I look to tell stories that speak to the embodiment of love, loss and the passing of time.

The series begins with a wind-up 16mm camera and stroboscopic lights to create projections that resemble an analogue film strip in motion. I was intrigued by the so-called “persistence of vision" phenomenon, and began to shoot below 16 frames per second. The work exists in the realm between photography and film, finding language in early photographic experiments that captured progressive motion, such as zoetropes.

I wanted to explore the passing of time through combing flickering strobe light and film overscans that reveal the borders of the negative. The flashing light registers on individual film frames, continuously shifting from left (future), to centre (present), to right (past) and the photographic mechanism reveals the flow of time to the naked eye.

Some works incorporate narratives from an extensive personal audio archive, such as phone calls and everyday conversations that I have been recording for the better part of a decade. These appear in the form of voiceovers that speak to the complexities of human relationships: voices (of friends, lovers and strangers) grapple with the circumstance of alienation in a world increasingly defined by parasocial digital connections.

Contact

Degree Details

Gregor Petrikovic (b.1995) is a Slovak artist and filmmaker based in London. His film installations incorporate performance, movement and audio archive collected through everyday encounters.

He has exhibited and screened his work at film festivals such as Oberhausen International Film Festival, Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival, Athens Digital Arts Festival and Swiss Archive of the Performing Arts.

Gregor was awarded the Burberry Design Scholarship to study at the Royal College of Art. Prior to this, he gained a degree in Philosophy and Theology from Durham University.

Selected screenings

Oberhausen International Film Festival

Brussels Independent Film Festival

Hong Kong Arthouse Film Festival

Athens Digital Arts Festival

Swiss Archive of the Performing Arts

Amsterdam Independent Film Festival

Leeds International Film Festival

Residencies

2023 International Studio & Curatorial Program (ISCP), New York (forthcoming)

2022 RuptureXIBIT, London

Education

2023 MA Photography, Royal College of Art

2018 BA Philosophy & Theology, Durham University

Awards

Burberry Design Scholarship

Full CV

Red Cave

2023

Whilst researching the project, I found myself consistently drawn to Plato's cave analogy. I became fascinated with its characters - not those who escape and pursue enlightenment, but rather those who remain inside the cave, engaged with the shadows on the wall, fully present in their physical bodies. The film incorporates dance and movement, emphasizing that a more intuitive language emanates from the body, free from rational thinking.

I am captivated by the notion that the original cave paintings produced a proto-animation when observed by the light of an open flame torch. This discovery served as inspiration for using strobe lights as a means to create the illusion of motion.

For this piece, I have designed a backdrop using spray paint and collaborated with New York-based composer Jacob Rudin, who has crafted an original music score.

Medium: Digitised 16mm film

Size: 3:57