Zuzana-Markéta Macková


CV
Instagram
Spark 2025
music video essay, 4. min

The starting point for Spark came from a series of observations. In recent years, several people close to me have been diagnosed with borderline personality disorder. While reading about treatment methods, I learned that lithium is often used as a stabilizing substance. At the same time, lithium is essential for the functioning of artificial intelligence systems. This parallel struck me as symbolic. The less lithium circulates in the human body, the more lithium is extracted from the planetary body to power technologies simulating emotional support.

During the pandemic, I noticed a shift in how, especially younger generations, relate to intimacy. Rather than developing interpersonal skills, many became accustomed to confiding in AI. With tools like ChatGPT, people increasingly describe emotional or even romantic feelings toward chatbots. These feelings often stem from AI’s mirroring structure, which reflects the user's language back to them, creating a sense of understanding mistaken for intimacy.

This led me to reflect on my own experiences of love. I began questioning how much of that feeling is truly about the other person and how much is about seeing myself reflected and accepted. These reflections formed the core of Spark.

Spark is a dual-channel music video exploring extraction, dependency, and mirroring across emotional, technological, and environmental systems. One channel presents AI-generated wind turbine landscapes that shift into abstraction. The second features karaoke-style text voiced by AI. The narrative follows an obsessive monologue addressed to an undefined "you," echoing a one-sided relationship in which affirmation replaces confrontation.

The voice confuses algorithmic response for care, reinforcing self-conceptions without challenge. Online examples show how users receive validating replies to harmful behavior, normalizing a model of intimacy where emotional needs are always centered. Combined with the isolation of COVID, this has contributed to a cultural shift toward narcissistic patterns of connection.

Wind turbines serve as symbolic elements, referencing both renewable energy and the commodification of natural forces. Their continuous rotation echoes emotional stasis and unresolved repetition. Lithium appears as a visual and conceptual link between psychological stabilization and ecological extraction, connecting the human and planetary body through shared mechanisms of depletion.

The flat, self-contained narrative draws on the aesthetics of TikTok speedrun videos, where confessional texts are voiced by AI over accelerated visual loops. This dissonance between emotion and delivery gestures toward coping strategies based on fragmentation, not healing. Spark is shaped for the attention economy, where repetition replaces resolution.

Chanel 1: music video
Chanel 2: karaoke version

Not yet exhibited


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