push the button!

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"Buttons are pushed by functionaries (stenotypists, photographers, bank presidents, generals, presidents of United States, in short: the computing operators). They choose between different buttons, which they have at their disposal. This choice, however, is prescribed to them - not by anyone or anything but by automatically self-feeding structure of a transmission programme. Example: the president of USA pushes in accord with some programme a button and his terminal displays a video image. The image shows russian missiles above Alaska. The president as a consequence pushes another button, which according to the programme turns cities to ashes.

Of course not all buttons are the same as for the scale and value of their effects and may thus be hierarchically ordered. In hierarchy of this kind the president USA would be placed above a president of a bank, because his push of a button turns cities into ashes, while bank president can only bring industrial companies to bankruptcy. And the bank president can be placed above a TV broadcaster, as his push of a button only brings images onto a TV screen. This hierarchy, however, is not to be kept. President's push of a button which can destroy cities is based on a TV broadcaster's choice which brings images onto a TV screen. And even this push of a button is brought as a result of a Russian general secretary's decision which in turn also may be a result of a TV operator's decision. It is therefore a mistake to see in the functionaries, however high their position may be those, that hold the power and make decisions, or to assume there may be some other hidden "higher centers of power". The whole thing runs automatically by itself. For the automated transmitters there are no elites which we could perhaps elect or overthrow."

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Vilém Flusser, Into the Universum of Technical Images, 1985
loose translation by Radim Labuda

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the collection of videos titled PUSH THE BUTTON! is united with a common theme of pushing buttons and the consequences such acts may bring.

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the collection was presented as a graduation project at Academy of Fine Arts in Prague in 2006
exhibited as a multi-channel at Hit Gallery in Bratislava, 30. 6. - 14. 7. 2006
Single videos have been also exhibited at numerous other group exhibitions.