New Ecosystems of Art
Exhibition of Digital Works by Artists from Poland – On Site and Online
Artists: Wojciech Bąkowski, Rafał Dominik, Eternal Engine (Martix Navrot & Jagoda Wójtowicz), Justyna Górowska (WetMeWild), Piotr Kopik, Norman Leto, Agnieszka Polska, PXKRW (Ewelina Aleksandrowicz & Andrzej Wojtas), Sebulec, Janek Simon
Curatorial team: Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka & Jakub Wróblewski
Visual identity: Renata Motyka
Exhibition design: Jakub Marzoch
Collaboration: Iga Chmielecka, Paweł Nowak, Katarzyna Urbańska
8.11–8.12.2024
Salon Akademii Gallery, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
Krakowskie Przedmieście 5, entrance from Traugutt Street
10.12–31.12.2024
online, on the platform Horyzonty zdarzeń wirtualnych:
horyzontyzdarzenwirtualnych.com
Visions of ecologically sustainable futures supporting our planet’s best interests, extraordinarily current in contemporary culture and art, and spanning a broad range of options – from the mildly speculative to the more realistic or rational – question growth as the fundamental social paradigm of capitalism, seeking alternatives thereto. Focused on notions of progress, development, growth, and an assumption that their delivery is made possible by continuous technological progress and ever more perfect technologies, prevalent neoliberal narratives can – Michał Krzykawski claims – “be countered only through building more profound and interdisciplinary ways of comprehending technology, man-machine relations, and values generated therein”(Krzykawski, 2023).
Perhaps – as Yuk Hui suggests – when attempting to name an unexplored future, it would be worth our while to analyse the present of technodiversity: the diversity of how we comprehend and build technologies (Hui, 2023). We believe that in order to achieve the goal, it would be advisable to take a realistic look at the structure of the contemporary technosphere, and its connections to the field of art. Owing to technological solutions, we have begun generating increasingly accurate textual, visual and audio content, including spatial qualities stimulating the most basic of all senses. The rich (and increasingly procedural) array of 2D and 3D tools, cloud rendering, motion capture, VR helmets and gaming engines is ever more often expanded to include state-of-the-art real-time machine learning algorithms based on calculations produced by enormous server suites. Models generating representations perceived as alternative versions of reality are among the most current themes today. According to OpenAI (who published Sora, their text-to-video tool, in February 2024), “our results suggest that scaling video generation models is a promising path towards building general purpose simulators of the physical world” (OpenAI, 2024).
We will soon be able to receive all interactive content in high-quality, stereoscope-streamed 3D imaging and audio, aesthetics and themes regardless. Voice command-generated dreams on demand will materialise thanks to an evolved prompting technique (no matter the dialect: available tools allow real-time translation with minor latency). In a reality of quantum computers built at research centres and private corporations (or, often as not, by consortia blending both), human circumstances can gain new and dynamic perspectives and meanings. Deep immersion has been allowed by large language models and databases with infinite graphic image and audio collections – secured ethically or otherwise. The appetite for AI-based imaging, calculations and simulations is hefty and on the rise. GPT and other language models – such as ChatGPT – are capable of generating illusions of human conversation devoid of any protein experience, contributing to the ever-greater distance between us and reality while taking a step beyond the capacity for processing or simulating said reality: these days, it can be produced in an automatic, mechanical, unmanned process. The contemporary “gigantic technological system” (Hui, 2023) generates new functioning conditions, including infinite self-regulation and self-improvement options. It goes without saying that all this affects politics, economy and culture, not to mention environment-related issues.
The use of AI involves water consumption of 1.8 to 12 litres per kWh of energy. It has been estimated that ChatGPT uses approximately half a litre of water per interaction of 20 to 50 questions. No less than 10,000 species vanish off the face of the earth per annum. Recent World Meteorological Organisation data prove that by the year 2100, even the primate population may drop by 80%. This is but a handful of terrifying ecosphere-related statistics; more could obviously be quoted. How does this knowledge affect art strategies? What will the dream of upcoming realities be? Are we capable of preserving our hopes and desires for utopian horizontal relations – or are we about to focus on the materialistic and impulsive need for survival here and now?
We get occasionally lost in these new ecosystems of art, co-created with the use of new tools, albeit with growing awareness of related costs and threats. On the one hand, we are bored with Campbell’s traditional linear path. Anyone exposed to and having comprehended The Hero with a Thousand Faces will forever lose his or her taste for classic storytelling models. One the one hand, we are fond of reaching for hybrid, modal and hyperlink-based ways of motif and tension creation. On the other, can the latter be bred in line with zero waste principles, with no impact on the flora or fauna? What categories should we use to describe contemporaneity, especially if aspiring to “lean out into the future,” however slightly? The question concerns us directly – including the entire arsenal of doubts regarding the use of natural resources, concerns evoked by swift climate and civilisational change, and globally unstable economic and political circumstances. Do we need to reach for futurist tools when conjuring up visions of the future? And are science fiction-driven narratives the optimum strategy of telling the world’s prospects? How is art repositioning itself in the face of the increasingly precise capacity of machines for telling or predicting the future?
In a conscious reference to new imaging techniques, all works shown at the exhibition will span a broad spectrum of phenomena and relations, taking account of de-growth perspectives and critical philosophy of technologies. The field of artistic practice includes interesting forecasts – individual and/or subjective alike – standing in opposition to holistic approaches to global phenomena and universally applied metanarratives. Stories proposed by artists will target a search for a new perception of reality, new ways of developing its representations and visions, and a novel specification of future-building tools.
Jakub Wróblewski, Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka
Exhibition organizer: Arsenal Gallery in Białystok
Partner: Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
Visual identity: Renata Motyka
Exhibition design: Jakub Marzoch
Collaboration: Iga Chmielecka & Paweł Nowak
Editing and proofreading: Ewa Borowska
English to Polish and Polish to English translation: Aleksandra Sobczak-Kövesi
Exhibition photos: Adam Gut
Communication and promotion: Gabriela Owdziej, Piotr Trypus
Supervising the proper implementation of the ‘Sztuki wizualne’ project: Julita Sitniewska
Legal support: Urszula Dubieniecka-Kiszło
Accounting: Marlena Maleszewska, Anna Olesiewicz, Katarzyna Wilimas
Coordination: Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka & Jakub Wróblewski
Exhibition Organizer
Arsenal Gallery, municipal cultural institution
Partner
Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, Salon Akademii, Pałac Czapskich
Co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage of the Republic of Poland from the Culture Promotion Fund
Media Partners
[SZUM] [MINT] [Notes] [Wyborcza.pl Białystok] [Białystok Online] [Polskie Radio Białystok]
