In 2004 we joined the European Union, and thanks to cheap work labor, economical reforms, and a good location in the middle of Europe we have quickly achieved the position of Central-Europe’s leader in the automotive industry. Three factories are producing more than a half million automobiles. In a small country such as this, with only 5 million citizens, Slovakia is now one of the biggest producers of automobiles. Suitably, we have gained the nickname, “New Detroit.” KIA Motors Slovakia started its production in Slovakia in 2006, in newly built plant near Zilina. This factory is now at the forefront of technology because of the automatization of its production processes. In the Kia plant you can find lines which are almost 100% automatized, and it isn’t difficult to see several hundred robots working together in harmony. The fascination with clean esthetic and cutting edge technology in the plant are interrupted by the sterility, emptiness, and human alienation that occurs in the plant. This alienation raises the basic question of the relationship between man and machine and their mutual interaction in me personally.

I’ve spent more than a year in this factory, and gradually I have discovered new pictures of this inherent future, which I will show through photographs and videos. I’m searching for a human being in a clean, symmetrical, hi-tech space, and I’m trying to make more clear the “problem” of gradual domination of man by machines, using strictly central compositions of picture.

My own experience with the factory has changed significantly over time. As I was discovering the world of the factory, I started to perceive a complex problem. I think that the relationship between man and machine is based primally on the relationship man has with himself, and his awareness of his own demands and values. I’m afraid, though, that our society hasn’t reached the point where we are capable of being aware of this challenge. I think this is proven by absurd overproduction, and not only in the automobile industry.

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GIVE YOURSELF TIME (Kateřina Kubánková, graphic designer)
The concept of the graphic processing of this book, which you are holding in your hands right now, comes from two basic aspects. Clearly the first are the photographs of Peter Snadik and his perspective of the theme, and the second aspect is the “visual” of the KIA factory space and its own internal media. The internal media consists of a magazine KIA has published for its employees called KIA Family, and statistical information presented on their website. I have drawn all texts in this book from these sources. Its intention is to reveal the Snadik photographic approach/view, and also to let the KIA factory “speak” with its own words and esthetics.