Planetary Consciousness. New Realities.
April 21st 2023 – May 31st 2023
“Arsenal” Gallery Power Station
Project assumptions have been inspired by the planetary consciousness category – in reference to a theory by sociologist and globalisation theorist Roland Robertson, author of the global consciousness notion (Robertson 1992, 2020). A shift in direction towards the world-universe relationship is a major challenge social sciences and humanities have been struggling with. Nonetheless, our comprehension of planetary consciousnessreferences the planet Earth as a whole: exploited, misused, neglected, gradually brought to the brink of annihilation – and yet approached with ever-greater subjectivity, empathy and concern.
The swift technological progress, the leap into the metaverse, attempts at propping reality up with technology resolve no old issues on the one hand while offering new opportunities on the other, yielding questions regarding new realities. These in turn are an opportunity for showcasing unknown potentials and emphasising new relationships with the Planet, possible and imagined alike.
Consequently, a locally, glocally, or even globally-based point of view will no longer be sufficient in terms of describing or rendering new realities. Hence the shift towards the planetary level, one wherein the planet Earth as a whole becomes a reality subject to speculation in terms of form and shape, in the present and in a future imagined. Man apart, who else is the causative actor and agent in the face of our Planet’s current and future condition?
Furthermore, ever more frequent questions revolve around the integrity of creating expansive virtual projects in general, and the ethic of generating artistic experiences in times of war and great energy and humanitarian crises, given the natural disasters and climate migrations of today and tomorrow, and the looming shadow of potential struggles for water and food. The ecological dimension of processing augmented worlds is pointed to ever more frequently, the ethic of expanding multimedia spaces questioned, the latter involving energy-related encumberment and capacity as well as psychological and sociological matters – of mankind functioning in societies and communities, at intersections where transmedia and real worlds meet.
Our immersion in technology has become a fact long ago – our existence involves an entanglement in algorithms and “invisible labour” (Świrek, 2018). Yet as proven by recent months, transmedia have become part of the realm of culture not only as a form of entertainment or convenient alienation and escapism solution, but also as space for alternative communication, an environment of generating new forms of artistic expression. Transmedia allow a backup of places to be created alongside efforts to register models of cities and objects, to document tangible heritage and support remembrance – while sustaining the active transfer of experience (of war and mass annihilation). Furthermore, virtual space and digital activities may morph into weaponry, active and extraordinarily efficient.
The Planetary Consciousness. New Realities. exhibition explores more than a solipsist dimension, or one opening a portal into virtual reality. Focusing on new potentials, it also references classic cultural and historical motifs – concepts such as social consciousness, global map positioning, ways of perceiving the world-planet and developing its holistic imagined image, in rational and irrational categories alike. What kind of beliefs, certainties and ideas will ultimately evolve in the area, moulding the way we think, the patterns and standards we tend to follow? What vectors and media will eventually target, deliver and/or develop them?
The environment of the “Arsenal” Gallery Power Station in Białystok has become a point of departure for our thought experiment narrative. The historical power plant building holds baggage of cultural symbolism within – an incarnation of the triumphant industrialisation era, a symbol of progress, living proof of electrification. Whether material, physically present or 3D-scanned, the edifice has become a point of intersection and interconnected activity, a meeting point for realities physical and immaterial. It will also become an interface for successive attempts at processing the trauma of modernness and everything that civilisation has done to the planet.
The project showcases the potential of XR – extended reality – as a resource of new techniques in the field of art, yet used ever-more frequently in parallel to more “classic”and “traditional” media, such as video or installations. In exhibition space, they serve as media communicating planetary consciousness-associated narratives. Do they have additional potential?
