Ivan Ladislav Galeta

Galeta investigated all parameters associated with the essence and production of film. He worked on numerous scripts, notations, and photographic installations hinting at proto-filmic scenarios of a mathematically abstract nature, meticulously compiled to foster the analysis of the filmic medium per se. His interests lay in Eastern philosophies, scientific processes, number theory, and zero-point fields, which relate to the lowest possible energy that a quantum mechanical system can have. This moved him to formulate new artistic interpretations of how energy and evolution could develop. Galeta worked on visualizing such developments in linear photographic sequences, denoting meta-media structures, which then became the outlines for his films. For him, photography formed the starting point for recording a visual reality that finally becomes incorporated into the filmic medium through a clear-cut succession of images and frames. This interconnectedness is manifested in a “spatio-temporal traction” as formulated by Tihomir Milovac, resulting in “uncanny idioms.”¹ Here, the idiom “mind over matter” would function as one variant in relation to quantum fields, which are connected not by visible forces but by an exchange of energy that constantly re-arranges itself. Galeta was a follower of Rudolf Steiner’s anthroposophy, which proclaims a synthesis between science and spirituality, or simply put, a “spiritual science.” In this regard, his garden also became the locus for his artistic observations, whose output also included object art, literary texts, musical compositions, performance, and net art. W.S.