PIOTR ZAWOJSKI

Published in: Wonderful Life. Laurent Mignonneau + Christa Sommerer. Ed. by R.W. Kluszczyński. Centrum Sztuki Współczesnej Łaźnia. Gdańsk 2012.

„They are ‘artists sans frontiers’, working in
labs in the Far East and Central Europe, in
galleries and museums in the Northern Hemisphere
and in the south, lecturing scientists
and technologists, as much as artists and
theorists”.
Roy Ascott

Interface

Like many other concepts in techno-culture
(but also in chemistry, physics, cartography,
and geology), the concept of interface has
both a conceptual and a technical dimension.
The latter understanding of interface
may be more concrete and exact, but it is
the first aspect which forces us to move
beyond a technical or technological frame
of reference for understanding interface
and seek a cultural context.
As I write these words (using a keyboard,
mouse, touchpad, and above all,
a monitor with a cascade of windows),
I am part of a multi-interface system.
At the same time, I am aware that this
interface is not something transparent –
quite the opposite: it directs my actions
not only in terms of simple operations
(hands – keyboard), but also in terms of
my conceptualization of what I want to
convey (write). Such thinking has been
succinctly and accurately summed up by
Lev Manovich: ‘far from being a transparent
window into the data inside a computer,
the interface brings with it strong
messages of its own.’1 We need to bear
in mind that he is thinking here primarily
about a graphical user interface (GUI),
but this way of thinking can most certainly
be extended to other types of interfaces,
including those in which contact
between the user and the machine
is not based on a screen/monitor. (więcej…)

Published in: „Izabela Gustowska. 66 Persons Search for Iza G.”. Poznań 2012. 

Intro

… this text is but a fragment, a small part (or perhaps a particle); just as Hybrids of Space-Time are only a fragment of a larger whole – the Strings of Time, while these are only a fragment of the continually expanding oeuvre of Izabella Gustowska. In turn, Gustowska herself, as well as the author of these words are a fragment, or rather a piece of the whole which, unfathomable and indescribable exists solely as the potentiality of existence. Virtually? 

When discussing virtual reality, one often forgets that the ‘virtual’ is principally (with semantics in mind) – the real, the true, the actual. Gustowska’s virtual world is as much virtual as it is real. Zbigniew Rybczyński would at times make perverse remarks about the realness in audiovisual communication – after all, Mickey Mouse is just as real as other figures from the world of film, while the latter are possibly much more real than historical figures. And this is not about Baudrillard’s simulacra, but about a matter-of-fact assessment of the world we live in. The reference to the world of film is not incidental, as it plays a considerable role in the artist’s project. (więcej…)

Published in: „CYBEREmpathy. Visual and Media Studies Academic Journal” 2014, no 8.

Abstract

Referring to Sidey Myoo’s motto – „There is one human and there are two worlds” – I would like to suggest a different perception of hybrid reality in which our doubled or multiplied “self” in a natural way experiences “multiple realities”. Cyberaesthetics is not only an aesthetic phenomena with the prefix “cyber”. Separating a phenomenon of cyberculture sphere from phenomena of new media sphere is a mistake. Therefore I try to think about cyberculture and cyberaesthetics in terms of their mutual relations with the world of new media. This is integrative and not oppositional thinking. Cyberaesthetics is an attempt at describing the way in which new media shape and co-create cyberculture. And the latter is expressed in new media art (cyberart). So, let’s create a cyberaesthetics as a contemporary version of aesthetics being the first domain of knowledge providing insight into our ontological and epistemological entanglements in the world of web practices. (więcej…)

Published in: Ryszard Czernow. Świat z cegieł. Fotografie. Urząd Miasta Tychy. Tychy 2013.

The issue of dating may seem to be a secondary element in an artistic activity, but it gives food for thought. Portfolio, posted on official website of Ryszard Czernow, presents subsequent photographic series, you can obviously realize the chronology, but intentional (?) lack of dating makes you think. At the same time another parts naturally become fragments of a larger whole – the whole that exists, as it were, beyond time and beyond chronology. It is, moreover, an essential feature of each photograph – existence beyond time, even though each image is a record of a particular moment („time”). At least that was the case for the ontology of traditional analogue photography. It is different, however, with digital one. (więcej…)