Liminal – the Transitional State

Exhibition by 3D and Virtual Occurrences  II Studio, Faculty of Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw

Participating Artists: Agata Chodera, Przemysław Danowski, Andrei Isakov, Palina Komarova, Agata Konarska, Mateusz Kowalczyk, Dobrosława Król, Krystyna Jędrzejewska-Szmek, Jakub Wróblewski

Curator: Zuzanna Sękowska

Co-ordinator: Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka

Visual identification: Renata Motyka

Arsenal Gallery in Białystok
October 22^nd – November 10^th 2021

The exhibition Liminal – the Transitional State is a presentation of selected projects by a group of artists of the 3D and Virtual Occurrences II Studio, Faculty of Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, headed by Jakub Wróblewski, Ph.D. The exhibit was designed in collaboration with Andrei Isakov and Przemysław Danowski, and will i.a. include the following works: Jakub Wróblewski, Andrei Isakov and Przemysław Danowski’s Lovestory, Agata Chodera’s Master of Reality, Palina Komarova’s Lunatyk, Agata Konarska’s Let’s Pray, Mateusz Kowalczyk’s Undermining, Dobrosława Król’s NeoWarszawa (NeoWarsaw), and Krystyna Jędrzejewska-Szmek’s VR Lab.

The exhibition is an attempt at exploring and discussing the “virtual event” phenomenon, and identifying its cultural and culture-formative dimension, as well as the purpose of related practices.

Transferring impressionality, sharing impressions, translating narratives into technological activities; sensitising others to shared and mutual presence, caring practices, the collective nature of actions – such are the essential issues we have defined as contributors to the show’s script and storyline. We proceed to ask how and to what purpose stories are actually told in the practice of new media/ transmedia reality artists, and which aesthetics and technologies we can define as applicable in the creative process.

Fundamental issues seem to include the dimension of community and community-formative nature of working with virtual reality/ new media, and the potential of creating communalities of experience. We perceive the studio as a field of experimenting and delegating authority, space where temporary collectives are formed and disbanded. The ultimate goal is to capture the trace of the communication method, as it were, alongside whatever has evolved as a permanent spirit or specificity of labour in the artistic habitat.

The exhibition has been designed as an open case, an exercise, a theoretical trip – operating as a process of participating, and including recipients therein. The conference accompanying the exhibition is intended as a seminar workshop, an attempt at initiating a critical examination of the local specificity of practices focusing on multimedia reality, including the perception of virtual events as proposed by the 3D and Virtual Occurrences II Studio – and, more broadly, of the specificity of working with augmented reality in general.

Once all aforementioned activities have been completed, a follow-up publication will be produced, theoretical critical commentary included – a collection of experiences involving the “transfer” of Studio activities to the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, and crucial conclusions regarding the theoretical workshop. The exhibition and accompanying activities are a yet another brand for the cycle of events presenting 3D and Virtual Occurrences II Studio accomplishments at the Arsenal Gallery.