bottom’s just another floor

In what some call “too late capitalism”, we are constantly promised seamless experiences—effortless flows of information, frictionless consumption, and an ever-expanding horizon of technological progress. Yet, instead of smoothly gliding forward, we often find ourselves trapped, spinning in place, ensnared by weird coils. bottom's just another floor examines this unsettling condition: an almost hallucinatory “stuckness” that rubs against the glossy finish painted by tech oligarchs, leaving us dazed within a maze.

The exhibition invokes this feeling of slow-motion friction, a state of being stuck that exceeds mere inertia. It’s an eerie, but also somehow deeply stupid repetition reminiscent of the internet-conjured phenomenon of "backrooms," where every potential escape route quietly loops back into another version of the same creepy, corporate non-place. An apt metaphor, perhaps, for our numerous attempts at offering seeming alternatives to contemporary power-structures, with each trapdoor opening into yet another enclosure.

The works of Total Refusal collective, Anne de Vries, Jakub Choma, and Tomi Faison embody these sensations of entrapment with both critical urgency and playful irreverence, amplifying the paradoxes embedded in our everyday experience. “Stuckness” reeks of failure, as it lays bare an underlying dullness and lack of direction – a moment of stoned clarity quickly retracted into familiar absurdity. Philosopher Thomas Nail understands our present political and economic system as a state of being “stuck” in one pattern of motion and wielding it violently against the rest of the world. The exhibition concurs with Nail’s thesis:

“I am not saying that Western civilization is unnatural to have gotten stuck and forced others to as well. Illness is just as natural as health.” 

To be clear, we do want to get “unstuck”, eventually. But instead of charting yet another flashy speculative escape, bottom's just another floor stays with the friction of stuckness, focusing on tensions and contradictions beneath the speeding surface. The visitors are invited to enter the loop, where every step may lead back to the start, and where we wager that what we thought was rock bottom might just be another floor.

 

---

bottom’s just another floor
1. 5. – 27. 7. 2025
MeetFactory Gallery

Opening: 30. 4. 2025 at Public House

Artists: Total Refusal, Anne de Vries, Jakub Choma, Tomi Faison
Curators: Noemi Purkrábková, Jiří Sirůček
Production: Nikol Hoangová

Tickets: 
100 CZK in MeetFactory or presale at GoOut.  
50 CZK students, seniors, ZTP 
The ticket is valid for both exhibition spaces. 

For group discounts (over 10 people), guided tours of exhibitions or press accreditation, please contact polla.stankovianska@meetfactory.cz  

>>> valid for MeetFactory Gallery and Kostka Gallery; available for purchase at the bar (cash and card payment possible)
>>> opening of exhibitions is free of charge

Opening Hours:
Monday–Sunday 1pm – 8pm