Summoning Ghosts

Exhibition opening:
6 pm 9th December 2022

Exhibition opening at 6 pm 9th December 2022

9.12- 10.12.2022

Curators: Tomasz Wendland, Anna Kołacka.

Artists:

Concept

“Let the moon’s pale brightness
No crevices fall through here”.

The exhibition in the basement is an evocation of souls, an invocation, a time of night, an initiation, a passage through the labyrinth of imagination and sounds to a place secluded, lonely place, where the rituals of the grandfathers will take place.

EXIT CODE

8 Mediatons Biennale Polska

2022

Maciej Andrzejczak

Maciej Andrzejczak is a visual artist developing his practice at the interface between the fields of painting and installation. His interests include the relationship between the three-dimensional world (hence the wide sides of the canvas) and the reality of the (flat) screen; the tension between external truth and internal truth, the simulation of the represented world (in painting, media) and the world of everyday experience; relativism. He works in cycles, and it is difficult to confine his works within a single painting style.

Filip Gajewski

Born in 1999 in Siemianowice Śląskie, as a graduate of the Silesian University of Technology, Faculty of Materials Engineering and employee of the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice, he works in various experimental media. He creates installations, graphics and virtual projects (Virtual Reality). Underlying this motivation is the desire to create unprecedented, unique, spatial experiences. Since 2017 she has been collaborating with the Intermedia Experiment Gallery LAB303, at the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice. He conducts workshops and lectures with students in the Intermedia and Digital Techniques Studio. From 2019 she collaborates with Mediations Biennale Poland and with the University of Ostrava, Faculty of Fine Arts. From 2020, he collaborates with the GAD Giudecca Art District in Venice, and from 2021 with the Academy of Fine Arts in Banska Bystrica and Pavilion 0 in Venice.

“The assumptions of each project are based on precisely defined issues such as material, scale, distance, structure, form, light, meaning. Through empirical processes and experimental activities, both in computational descriptive geometry and material systems, the projects develop primarily towards the sensation of spatial experience.

The virtual spherical objects presented in the various exhibitions have their genesis in the physical exploration and analysis of various material structures, especially metal structures. On the basis of the atomic crystal structure, the author constructs a whole range of works from flat prints, spatial images to virtual digital objects in a thought process. We can refer to Filip Gajewski’s work as visual representation, as a transcription of the elements of the observable universe. It is his way, a means of communication, a direct, concise language, a visual code in its discovery. Marshall McLuhan (1962), looking at a modern civilisation dominated by ever-evolving technological advances, noted that it was entering from the Gutenberg era to the so-called Marconi era, in which digital media dominate. Through these media we can further understand the universe around us. Its structure and complexity. The crystallography of a metal, is characterised by: the chemical composition of the material, the size, the shape of the grains, and the mutual distribution of the different phases, the degree of defect in the crystal lattice and the distribution of structural defects. Transferring scientific issues to art is the visual language used by Filip Gajewski. His visual representation as a hybridity of the creative process manifests itself in the juxtaposition of traditional artefacts – paper, metal – with the use of new technologies – software environment, virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR) – as tools for editing and creation.”

Dr Jakub Cikała, Universe as purest form – a self-contained creative environment

Mateusz Gromadzki

Transmedia artist, posthumanist, nomad and outsider, born in 1996 in Olsztyn. Graduate of the Faculty of Painting and Drawing at the Magdalena Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznań. In 2022 he defended his inter-media diploma in the specialisation, Drawing. Forces other than ‘university’ that have shaped his creative development define nature, rural artists and encountered outsiders, street artists, niche art phenomena, and aesthetics of encountered cultures in anthropological journeys. He is fluent in drawing, imagery, objectivity, performativity and fabric-art and digital media. He is interested in building transmedial languages, transposing natural phenomena into intermedial forms, observing Zoe and Bios, growing authorial organic matter, collecting abandoned non-human artefacts as carriers of memory, exploring fairy-tale, mythic and archetypal through sensory anthropology intertwined with artistic practice. He considers empathy and metaphor as tools to explore the mysteries of reality. Post-artistic phenomena coming from nature fill his everyday life, he treats them as a genre of contemporary spirituality and self-therapy.

Dominika Jaenel

Dominika Jaenel – dancer, choreographer, improviser. A graduate of Studium Animatorów Kultury “Skiba” in Wrocław in the faculty of dance animator, a student of the Academy of Music in Łódź in the faculty of choreography and dance techniques. She is an enthusiast of intuitive dance and improvisation, staying in touch with nature.

Anna Kołacka

Born in 1992 in Poznań.

Education

University of Arts Magdalena Abakanowicz in Poznań – master’s degree studies (2016).

University of Arts Magdaleny Abakanowicz in Poznan – doctoral studies (2019).

PhD defended with distinction, Magdaleny Abakanowicz University of Arts in Poznan (2019)

Assistant professor in the 17th Drawing Studio of Prof. Tomasz Bukowski, Ph.D. – UAP (2018-present)

Artist

Painter, author of objects and video projections – prepared in my own technique.

My aim is to create imaginary worlds. His paintings flat and three-dimensional, static and dynamic, universal and detailed. Based on the concept of naturo-culture, I believe in the interpenetration of the organic and that which is considered purely humanistic. I experiment with a variety of materials and invoke natural processes of decomposition and transformation of substances, which for me are usually the starting point for a specific project.

Maciej Olekszy

Born in 1982 in Sulęcin. He graduated from the Faculty of Painting at the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan (2007). Two years later he was awarded the Salted Candy prize (Poznan New Gallery). In 2017 and 2021 he received a scholarship from the Minister of Culture and National Heritage. He lives and works in Poznań.

A painter who seeks the bionicity of the body in the means of painting, emphasizing the impression of intimacy. The dominant themes are portrait and nude – drawn from the immediate environment. In his work he refers to Poznań expressionism.

Grzegorz Pleszyński

Pleszynski combines sounds with colours and visual forms. The author says that his flowing paint lasts in time like sound and often images become the score for musical compositions….and vice versa. He produces sounds from two trumpets constructed from fuel hoses, a kitchen funnel and mouthpieces. The voices of wild animals can be found in his playing. He is also inspired by the sounds of ships anchoring in bays, night-time steelworks and busy intersections. He often uses images and video to create sound.

Pleszynski writes: For me the most important thing is to get to the source of cognition through art. I am interested in how the culture we live in is oppressive towards me and other people. Cultures used to be more oppressive towards individuals, today, it would seem, a little less so. Or is it just appearances? I am looking for those ‘shells’ imposed by culture or that subtle ‘powder’ that is put on our nature. I am trying to discover the mechanism that governs this. We have to balance what is necessary from this oppression and what we can get rid of as superfluous ballast, linked, for example, to tradition and sometimes too rapid progress. He is the author of six albums of music. He has directed and created music for 3 opera performances with performance elements.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Ran Slavin

Filmmaker, video artist, visual designer and composer. Ran Slavin’s work focuses on time-based media and the use of electronic and digital technologies to explore the dynamics between photography, fiction, digital interventions and narrative. His work explores cinema, multi-channel video sound installations and various musical sub-genres.

Tajny_projekt

Tajny_projekt is an artistic collective operatingin the field of new media. It is created by Michał Urbański (born 1994), a graduate of Computer Science at the Faculty of Automatic Control, Electronics and Automation at the Silesian University of Technology and Kacper Mutke (born 1994), a graduate of the Academy of Fine Arts in Katowice at the Faculty of Graphic Design, with a specialization in multimedia.

In their works, they combine various media to create interactive multimedia installations, visual content, applications and VJ performances. They draw inspiration from glitch-art, artificial intelligence and abstraction. They try to be critical of the possibilities of modern technology.

They participated in the artistic residencies of the Silesian Museum (Katowice, Poland) and Rencontres Audiovisuelles (Lille,France). They took part in festivals and exhibitions in Poland and abroad, incl. in the Czech Republic, France, China, Croatia and the Netherlands. They won the audience award in the Digital Ars 2021, the first polish artificial intelligence art competition.

Tomasz Wendland

Born in 1960 in Poznań.

Education:
Adam Mickiewicz University (History of Art), 1981-1984.
Alanus Kunsthochschule Alfter/Bonn Germany (paintings), 1990.
Academy of Fine Arts in Poznan (drawing, sculpture, education), 1993.
PhD „The Unknown”, Dartington College of Art, Plymouth University, Great Britain, 2009.
Habilitation „Black Light”, University of Art in Poznan, 2012.

Artist:
Artist working in fields of: video and sound, installarion, sculpture, photography, object, performance. It’s common to all works to search for the presence of the mystery, its sensual experience.
Curator and initiator of international project such as Mediations Biennale in Poznań, Hotel de Inmigrantes, Pavilion0, and many shows in Belgium, China, Germany, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Israel, Japan, Korea, Turkey, Urugway, USA and Poland.

Sławomir Decyk

ur. w 1968 roku, mieszka i pracuje w Poznaniu. Od 2002 roku jest pracownikiem Wydziału Fotografii UAP. Zajmuje się szeroko rozumianym zjawiskiem fotografii, instalacją oraz obrazem ruchomym. Refleksyjną postawę jego działań twórczych cechuje konfrontacja zapomnianych lub pomijanych metod obrazowania z aktualną praktyką doświadczania medium, definiowanie granicznych obszarów fotografii (w szczególności tych określanych jako postmedialne), poszukiwanie nowych środków wyrazu i narzędzi pozwalających przekroczyć własną wyobraźnię. Jest współtwórcą Solarigrafii i autorem unikalnej serii Cyklografii. Brał udział w ponad 70 wystawach w Polsce i za granicą, między innymi: Wielkiej Brytanii, Australii, Chinach, Hiszpanii, Kanadzie, Niemczech, Słowacji. Od roku 2020 prowadzi Pracownię Fotografii Eksperymentalnej na Wydziale Fotografii Uniwersytetu Artystycznego im. M. Abakanowicz w Poznaniu.