Petr Szyroki’s installation entitled „Reconnect“ has been installed since July 8th near the „PRIOR“ shopping center. It is placed across the pedestrian walkway, which makes it impossible to pass by. It is a large banner, which is spread out on a metal frame. The frame has the form of a rectangle made of simple, strong metal strips. The strips are painted black. The frame is 250 cm high and 200 cm wide. The banner does not take up the entire surface. It starts about 60 cm above the sidewalk and ends about 30 centimeters before the upper frame.
The banner has two main parts. 4/5 of the banner’s surface, from the top, is occupied by computer graphics, simulating changes in public space. The graphic has a slightly transparent inscription. It’s the word RECONNECT written in all capital letters. It’s at the very bottom of the graphic. The rest of the banner, at its bottom edge, is occupied by text in small font and logos.
The banner graphic is based on a photo taken from the sidewalk. The lower part of the photo shows the street in sharp foreshortening. In the far left part, there are small outlines of multi-story tenement houses. Above them, there is a slightly greyish sky. In the centre and right part of the graphic, there is a simulation – the most important part of the banner. A dense forest has been superimposed on a fragment of urban development. Tall, lush green spruces grow in it, accompanied by birches and low trees with yellow and brown leaves. The forest is drawn in such a way that silhouettes of cars and outlines of buildings loom between the tree trunks. The key element of the simulation is the red line. It’s in the left section of that artificial forest. This is the outline of the shape of the building occupied by the “PRIOR” shopping centre, a multi-story and large-area building. The proposed afforestation takes place on a larger area than that occupied by „PRIOR“. The red outline of the building is approximately 1/4 of the forest. An interesting and easy-to-ignore detail is the fact that the sky over the forest is not grey. It becomes blue in this part of the graphic.
Below the graphic, there is an inscription in Czech: Project Title: Reconnect – True Revitalisation; Implementation Date: 09/202; Contractor: Mother Nature, non-profit organisation; Designer: Petr Szyroki. It is made of small, black letters. Next to it is the set of logos. The larger one on the left is the stylized and multi-colored element which is an outline of a heart. This is the logo of the Festival Umění ve městě. Next to this is the logo of the Czech Ministry of Culture and the logo of the European Funds – it is the EU flag with the note „Co-financed by the European Union“.
The project is not sculptural at all; rather, it is a conceptual hoax installation. At the core of the concept is a temporarily installed billboard/banner that presents a proposed revitalization of a given location in a radically nature-oriented spirit. The clear target of this idea is the temples of consumerism—shopping centers—which today no major city has avoided. These are often brutally inserted into historical cityscapes or desecrate patches of nature, and they typically lack any significant architectural value. The banner featuring a visualization shows a newly grown forest in place of a shopping mall. The design of this banner is graphically convincing, closely imitating the style of actual construction project signage. An inattentive viewer without a sense of humor might be confused, at least momentarily. From an attentive viewer, one can hope, it would provoke amusement—and perhaps even deeper reflection.