Magdalena Jetelova

"Magdalena Jetelova used illuminated lines to expose communication structure of the landscape; Crossing King's Cross - she uses lights to map out the future path of a train route as well as natural changes (in the Island Project / Islandský projekt – she enlists lasers to draw attention to the undersea intercontinental divide (mountainscape). In her geographical project, Songline 75° 36‘52‘‘ (1998) contemporary localization techniques are used to join two spots on the earth. This is possible thanks mainly to use of the imagination stemming from local traditions." - Lenka Dolanová. See more;

Iceland, 1992_

"The Central Atlantic Shelf is an approximately 15,000 kilometer-long mountain range, mostly hidden at the bottom of the ocean. From the geological point of view it forms the dividing line between Europe and America. This is a seam along the place where millions years ago two continents were torn apart. Today we know that the Central Atlantic Shelf is part of a bigger system which circles the entire globe for nearly 70,000 kilometers. It goes from Iceland to the north between Spitzbergen and Greenland, continuing through the Arctic Ocean to the mouth of the Lena River in Siberia. In the southern direction, it goes from Iceland eastward along the southern end of Africa, continuing to the north through the Indian Ocean. Iceland is the only place where the Central Atlantic Shelf goes above the sea.

The geological border between Europe and America can be seen with the naked eye for about 350 kilometers in the form of a range which cuts through Iceland in a north-eastern direction. Both land masses are still moving, shifting and bumping into one another. Therefore the whole area is seismically active with a number hot springs and active volcanoes. The light line of the laser beam draws the border between the two continents. The form of the exact direct line is all the time freshly defined by its touch with the terrain—it goes through the raw landscape along the lava fields, through cracks disappearing in the mist of hot steam from geysers. The computer-determined precise line of a geological event in ancient time that has formed our world of today." - Magdalena Jetelova.

Crossing King’s Cross, 1996_

"The King’s Cross section of central London has been significantly marked by its industrial past dating from the 18th century. This part of London, comprised of a network of industrial plants and warehouses and traversed by railway tracks and canals, is set to become a modern urban crossroad. It will host the terminal of high-speed trains between London and Paris, connecting Britain with the Continent. The 54 hectares of railway land behind King’s Cross and St Pancras stations is today a sparsely populated, unarticulated territory within a dense and fast-paced urban environment.

The former modernity of the railway station of 1850 and visible traces of the then dynamic development of the area are perceived today as time which has stopped. The past of King’s Cross is represented by abandoned industrial buildings and old railway operations; its future consists of modern transport and communication technology. The present is a transitory period, a kind of “no man’s time”. A laser beam indicating the future line of the TGV railway in the existing landscape links the physically present past without real action and the so far virtual future, a direct path of the speed of the light replaces half-time life. Photography changes into a new form afforded by the speed of the train." - Magdalena Jetelova.