Group exhibition
Šimon Chyla was born in 1990 in Ružomberok, Slovakia. After studying at the local Secondary School of Arts and Crafts, where he specialized in toy design, he worked for over a decade as a sailor and river navigation pilot on European waterways. It is fascinating to observe how these two life experiences have influenced Chyla’s artistic work today. Since 2011, Šimon has participated in numerous sculptural symposia and group exhibitions. He has also had solo exhibitions, such as at the TANAP Museum in Tatranská Lomnica or the Slovak Museum of Nature Protection and Speleology in Liptovský Mikuláš. Currently, he is studying in the Sculpture Studio at the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava under the guidance of Štefan Papčo and Matej Gavula.
Chyla’s early figurative sculptures often incorporated humor and irony, with a strong emphasis on material and craftsmanship. His initial works were closely tied to wood. Recently, his projects have moved into the realm of installations, while maintaining a sculptural approach to space. He also applies his practical technical skills to create mechanisms that “animate” his sculptures.
At his first solo exhibition in Prague, held at Pragovka, Šimon Chyla presents two large, electrically powered kinetic works. The installation “I Play by Myself” features a two-seater metal swing occupied by a lone figurine of a young girl. This piece was inspired by a childhood memory of the artist’s partner. According to Chyla, the swing also serves as a personal reflection on the complex issue of negative population trends in contemporary society.
The monumental installation “Loss Event” portrays a stylized car accident scene, with two road vehicle carcasses—Fiat and Opel—repeatedly colliding. This work draws on Chyla’s own experience as an artist-driver, when his inattention led to a car accident that, fortunately, was not fatal.
Chyla reflects on the experience:
“I felt a stillness, like being in a crowded, noisy place where everyone is moving and making noise, but you’re wearing noise-canceling headphones. You close your eyes, giving space only to your thoughts, disconnected from external sensations. It’s like prioritizing your inner world. In that moment, nothing else mattered or distracted me. Although the experience stemmed from unfortunate circumstances, I’m glad I had it—it was rare and unique. I haven’t felt anything similar since, and probably never did before.”
Both installations are rooted in real-life events. The choice of motifs (a child’s swing versus a car—an “adult toy”) and their striking execution offer viewers wide interpretative possibilities. These range from exploring the “meaning of individual existence,” to the conflict between personal freedom and bureaucratic systems, the relationship between humans and technology, and even the future of civilization.
The final interpretation of the text is always left to the viewer.
Chyla’s electrically powered mechanical sculptures function as condensed narratives—both mundane and haunting. The lonely figure swinging and the collision of two (empty) vehicles highlight the absence of human presence. Machines built to facilitate systematic, rhythmic movement dominate both scenes, underscoring a melancholic, dystopian, yet grotesquely entertaining vision—a post-apocalyptic amusement park.
The exhibition title softens these harsh edges: “I Don’t See It as All That Dark,” says the artist.
The looping action, especially in the car crash installation, creates a cinematic effect, as if the three-dimensional scene is stuck in time. The rhythmic, sound-accompanied movement becomes manipulative, hypnotic. The endlessly repeated scenario reveals its stark banality and absurdity, rendering it surreal. The recurring car collision morphs into a “filmic kiss,” giant cymbals, or a whimsical scene from an animated series featuring anthropomorphized machines. Meanwhile, the swing acts as a giant metronome, dictating a rhythm to the human body—or it might have leapt out of a Japanese horror movie.
Cute & Creepy.
By utilizing the rotational force of the motors powering both installations, Chyla has trapped time in a loop, materializing “events.” Interestingly, automobiles and cinematography emerged around the same period as Einstein’s theory of relativity, which reshaped our understanding of time.
“Duration made up of moments without duration…”
French cultural theorist and philosopher Paul Virilio analyzed the relationship between society and technology through phenomena like speed, temporality, disappearance, acceleration, events, and accidents. Virilio argued that accidents are “embodiments of pure surprise.” He stated, “To understand technology, it is crucial to study accidents.”
The development of new technologies inherently creates new potential accidents. With the invention of the car came the invention of the car accident. As Virilio said, “You cannot innovate without causing some form of damage.” Accidents drive not only technological progress but, like gene replication errors or predator collisions, also propel evolution.
A key element in both of Chyla’s installations is the theme of absence. On the two-seater swing, one seat is empty; in the car crash, both drivers are absent. Is this an existential metaphor? The elusiveness of the subject? The aesthetics of disappearance?
The installations engage in a meaningful dialogue between the living and the non-living, humans and machines. Notably, even the lonely child swinging is not a real person but a mechanical mannequin—a robot, homunculus, or small golem.
Chaplin’s Modern Times?
Czech-Brazilian philosopher and media theorist Vilém Flusser, who died in a car accident in 1991, might have appreciated Chyla’s mechanical objects as illustrative of his concept of the “automaton.” The mechanical device moving the swing is hidden beneath the deliberately worn-looking child’s clothes, transforming the figure into a “black box,” a “mechanism whose inputs and outputs we control without understanding what happens inside.” Similarly, Chyla gutted and “black-boxed” the inner workings of both cars, replacing their worn combustion engines with new electric motors, thereby “reviving” the wrecks with an electrical Shem.
The machines we create end up controlling us.