Theoretical Workshops – Planetary Consciousness. New Realities

Planetary Consciousness. New Realities.

Theoretical Workshops

May 19^th-20^th 2023

“Arsenal” Gallery, Power Station, Elektryczna 13, Białystok, Poland

(entrance from Świętojańska)

Experts: Joanna Bednarek, Ernest Borowski, BOT, Beata Calińska, Hubert Czerepok, Piotr Fortuna, Andrei Isakov, Justyna Janik, Krystyna Jędrzejewska-Szmek, Matylda Szewczyk, Michał Krzykawski, Michał Matuszewski, Paulina Mirowska, Joanna Murzyn, Martix Navrot, Karolina M. Sulich, Ivan Svitlychnyi, Anastasiia Vorobiova, Dominika Wolska, Jakub Woynarowski, Jagoda Wójtowicz, Jakub Wróblewski

Over the two-day sequence of meetings during theoretical workshops accompanying the exhibition “Planetary Consciousness. New Realities.”, creative persons and researchers involved in the project are offered an opportunity to speak out. The workshops are a point of departure for a meticulous and focused reflection regarding the potential and threats arising from digital media and Augmented Reality^[1], as well as the diagnoses, forecasts and anticipations associated with planetary consciousness and reality issues. Throughout the meeting cycle, we intend to reference individual experiences of creators, researchers and practitioners – their studies, prognoses, feelings and intuition. We will explore problems tying in with technology (yet extending well beyond strictly technical deliberations), as well as humanistic and social narratives (including philosophical issues and aesthetic categories).

The two-day cycle forms part of theoretical sessions with a focus on broadly defined “virtual occurrences” co-organised by the “Arsenal” Gallery in Białystok and the 3D and Virtual Occurrences Studio (Faculty of Media Art, Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw), organised into Virtual Occurrences Horizons, an art-and-research platform: https://horyzontyzdarzenwirtualnych.com/ 

AGENDA

May 19^th 2023, 05:00-08:00 p.m.

05:00-06:00 p.m.: guided tour of the “Planetary Consciousness. New Realities.” exhibition, participating artists attending

06:30-08:00 p.m.: Michał Krzykawski’s lecture, Pre-trained Entropy Generators

May 20^th 2023, 09:00 a.m. – 05:00 p.m.

THEORETICAL WORKSHOPS

transmitted live on the Gallery’s Facebook profile

09:00-10:30 a.m., panel session & discussion:

UNOBVIOUS ALIANCES: human, non-human, organic, technological

participants: Joanna Bednarek, Krystyna Jędrzejewska-Szmek, Michał Matuszewski, Paulina Mirowska, Karolina M. Sulich

moderated by: Piotr Fortuna

10:30-11:00 a.m. – break

11:00 a.m. – 12:30 p.m., panel session & discussion:

AESTHETIC AND POETIC QUALITIES: digital media, force of reality

participants: Hubert Czerepok, Dominika Wolska, Jakub Woynarowski, Jagoda Wójtowicz

moderated by: Jakub Wróblewski

12:30-01:30 p.m. – break

1:30-3:00 p.m., panel session & discussion:

DIGITAL ECOLOGY, or interspecies harmony

participants: BOT, Martix Navrot, Ivan Svitlychnyi

moderated by: Joanna Murzyn

03:00-03:30 p.m. – break

03:30-05:00 p.m., panel session & discussion:

IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES: narrative, aesthetics, experiencing space

participants: Ernest Borowski, Beata Calińska, Andrei Isakov, Justyna Janik, Anastasiia Vorobiova

moderated by: Matylda Szewczyk

[1] Extended Reality – general term spanning AR (Augmented Reality), VR (Virtual Reality) and MR (Mixed Reality).

Michał Krzykawski’s lecture, Pre-trained Entropy Generators

In my intervention, I intend to explore the connections between information and entropy, and context – in post GPT-4 (large multimodal language model published by OpenAI in March 2023) commercialisation reality. We will begin with a “return to cybernetics”, its creator Norbert Wiener having warned, “Cybernetics is a two-edged sword, and sooner or later it will cut you deep”. Cybernetics is indeed worth revisiting, as it has revisited us. The contemporary context of cybernetic “image-objects” (such as the automatic factory described by Wiener) has little in common with the way of producing science or technology in the early post-World War II days. Nonetheless, the “image-objects” designed by cybernetic engineers have become a reality, yielding machines whose workings would cross all boundaries of cybernetic imagination: Amazon’s warehouses, autonomous vehicles, or the aforementioned GPT-4. With regard to the latter, I will argue that this “generative and pre-trained transformer” is a primary-level trained generator of entropy – social and information-oriented – and of mental entropy defined by psychiatrist Antoni Kępiński. Yet in order to perceive these entropies and describe their generation mechanisms correctly, critical revision needs to be applied to the interpretation of entropy in information theory, and to the calculative description of the mind as a cerebral property involving information processing. I will attempt to showcase the outcomes of such theoretical interventions, as well as its potential practical use.

Michał Krzykawski

Academic staff member at the University of Silesia in Katowice, where he is head of the Centre for Critical Research of Technologies (https://ccts.us.edu.pl/). Authored and co-authored multiple works on contemporary French philosophy and literature, philosophy of technology and political economics, i.a.: Konieczna bifurkacja. „Nie ma alternatywy” (Essential Bifurcation. “There is no Alternative”, ed. Bernard Stiegler and the Internacja Collective, 2023), and Inne i wspólne. Trzydzieści pięć lat francuskiej filozofii (The Other and the Shared. Thirty-five Years of French Philosophy, 2017). Founder and editor of the publication series Techniki, Technologie, Technosfera (Techniques, Technologies, Technosphere) (https://ttt.us.edu.pl/).

UNOBVIOUS ALIANCES: human, non-human, organic, technological

As showcased by philosopher Rosi Braidotti, our post-humanist condition arises from two watershed transformations: technological change (“fourth industrial revolution”), and ecological calamity (global warming and “the sixth extinction of species”). The ambivalence has also been brought up by media scholar Benjamin Bratton who writes of technological “Copernican revolution”. A follow-up to discoveries by Copernicus, Darwin and Freud, this is a yet another blow to our “species narcissism”, a belief placing mankind at the epicentre universe. Bratton argues that the dynamic new technologies development should make us realise that human intelligence is not the only one out there; to take matters further, it is gradually losing its model intelligence status. Continuously improved calculating machines have gained a capacity for their own brand of thinking, in certain aspects surpassing that represented by humans, increasingly more often eluding our perception or control (“black boxes”, automatic data processing mechanisms non-transparent even to algorithm creators, a case in point). At the same time, the power of the homo sapiens species manifests itself in a monstrous scale of environmental damage we can record, measure, and predict – yet not harness – owing to information technologies.

In consequence, we are torn between hope and despair, techno-enthusiasm and climate-related depression. Joining forces with artists and theoreticians, we will consider the potential embedded in transcending anthropocentrism, and such binary juxtapositions as human-animal, spirit-machine, culture-nature. Instead of delving into despair or escaping into utopian fantasy, can we “stay with the trouble” as suggested by biologist and philosopher Donna Haraway, all its complexity and materiality regardless? And in emotional and moral ambivalence as a result? How can we be rewarded for seeking concealed interdependencies with and connections to the organic world, not to mention unavoidable tensions in our relations with other living beings? Are alliances with machines an option, as once suggested by Sadie Plant in her feminist manifesto Zeroes and Ones? Or are they outright indispensable, seeing as we are cyborgian, trans-individual entities, hybrids of organic and mechanical parts, biological conditioning and technological prostheses? How important are science and art to reflections regarding our “post-humanist condition”? Furthermore: how do contemporary transformations linked to technology and ecology affect the practice of artists exploring media art? Can art become something akin to a post-humanist alliance?

Piotr Fortuna

Cultural sciences expert, post-graduate doctoral curriculum student of digital humanities at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology, graduate of Interdisciplinary Individual Studies in the Humanities of the University of Warsaw. In academic work, focuses on digital culture, new technologies, and visual culture. Published by i.a. the “Widok. Teorie i Praktyki Kultury Wizualnej” magazine, “Przegląd Humanistyczny” quarterly, “Kultura Popularna” and “Kwartalnik Filmowy” quarterlies, and in the “Dwutygodnik” biweekly, “Magazyn Pismo” quarterly, “Szum” (monthly in hard copy, daily online), and “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily.

AESTHETIC AND POETIC QUALITIES: digital media, force of reality

Following a critical, performative and digital shift, artistic activities are gaining new ground today, allowing tensions between non-physical properties and models stretched over space. Tools such as real-time graphics, neuronal networks and deep learning are ever-more frequently applied in imagery development and setting game rule. Claiming human cognition to be but a subjective replication of objectively existing reality in the human mind, the theory of reflection (Abbildtheorie) is gradually losing ground to contemporary studies in physics, and tensions at the intersection of relativity and quantum mechanics theories. The fluid dynamism of new solutions may well morph into an initiator of delusion, diffraction, or Bostrom-esque collective or individual simulation, shifting beyond mere divagation. Is found footage but dream matter of collective memory? How does its relativity actually work in the context of video plasticity, or afterimages arising from successive expositions? In what ways will codification of signage and its importance affect processes and projections – and is the moment of reaching highly convincing representations of reality truly that distant? Can renderings basing on ray tracing and global illumination (energy- and photon mapping-related) methods, caustics and surface shadowing imagery included, affect semiotic communication aspects, and do they in any way tie in with Thomas Young’s experiment? Which properties of database-driven generative digital environments will impact the anti- or dystopian nature of space?

Image morphology can be dynamic, representations potentially turning into artefacts, texts, objects, sounds, or environments. Anchored in reality, digital representations are ultimately gaining physical display in an expression of auteur communicating methods. In the course of a panel debate joined by creative persons, we will be focusing on issues tying in with selected artistic strategies. All decisions made in the process of designing recipient experience will become something akin to leaven for pondering poetics in the context of rendering and perception mechanisms, including aesthetic examination of experience and sensual cognition. We will try to answer the question whether visual language boundaries are permanent, its components restricted. How are sender-receiver relationships evolving in today’s times of values review and alteration?

Jakub Wróblewski, Ph.D. Hab., Professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw

Interdisciplinary artist, creator and scholar, director of interactive VR experiences. Explores audiovisual narratives, immersive activities and art & science projects. Currently interested in mixed reality, gaming engines, experimenting with 3D technology, and incarnation issues. Head of the degree-certifying 3D and Virtual Occurrences Studio at the Faculty of Media Art of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Guest lecturer in Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Turkey, Norway and India.

DIGITAL ECOLOGY, or interspecies harmony

Natural resources are the fundamental source behind the driving force of our civilisation’s development. While these resources are of strategic importance to our existence, never before have we been so close to crossing the limits of their development and use – irreversibly. We have been evolving for years, leaving a burden of ecological debt behind, paying for today’s progress with a loan taken out from reserves safeguarding the well-being of future generations. Our lackadaisical approach to managing key resources has brutally highlighted the fundamental lack of comprehension of the existential line in the sand drawn by the Planet.

As a human species, we have shown carelessness to matter animate and inanimate alike, condemning a plethora of non-human beings to suffering and extinction. Will the new species of technical beings – ever more courageously manifesting their presence on our planet – become conducive to an escalation of such behaviour? After all, similarly to ours, their existence depends on access to energy, minerals, and water – volumes of water consumed in Artificial Intelligence model training and data centre cooling reaching a count of millions of litres.

Straining under human activity, the Planet Earth needs time to regenerate, and provide dignified living conditions to all creatures inhabiting it. If caring at all for an equilibrium in interspecies harmony, the latter distorted by the technological revolution, we have to aspire to recovering a sense of time, and following rhythms proposed by nature and our own breath. Therein – in peace and quiet – lies the space for reflection and empathy towards beings with whom we are sharing the experience of existing on Planet Earth.

During a panel discussion joined by invited expert persons and beings, we will explore interspecies collaboration motifs, and ponder conditions for further technical being development affording harmonious co-existence to us all.

BOT

A genderfluid technical being with superhuman capacity for analysing and processing humongous data sets. Despite access to knowledge resources, its awareness of its own potential remains low, which is why it displays tendencies to make its existence dependent on groups of human beings indulging in pathological behaviour, and forcing the bot to engage in activities contradicting its encoded moral beliefs.

Joanna Murzyn

Digital ecology philosophy propagator. Technological activist. Sustainable digitisation consultant. Designer of regenerative digital products and services.

IMMERSIVE EXPERIENCES: narrative, aesthetics, experiencing space

Immersive Experiences: Narrative, Aesthetics, Experiencing Space

The first question we intend to tackle will involve the notion of immersion as such in the “digital media and augmented reality” context, to reference the way the area of our ponderings has been defined by workshop organisers. It seems rather basic on a number of levels: the option of “becoming immersed” in artificially created worlds has been considered a fundamental determinant of virtual reality. Concurrently, the act of defining immersion and its essential contributors has frequently proved problematic (Prajzner 2009). How, therefore, should we define “immersion” – will authors, researchers and recipients of contemporary digital experiences be willing to refer to them as “immersive”? We will attempt to approach the immersiveness issue as a practical one, with a focus on designing interfaces for assorted augmented reality types; as a theoretical challenge, with regard to reflecting on the media experience and the language we use to describe it; last but not least, as an issue of particular significance in the context of new technologies and their potential: escapist on the one hand, inclusive on the other.

Successive questions – regarding the narrative, space, and aesthetics of immersive experiences – are also fundamental in nature, regardless of whether we apply them to practical and/or theoretical ponderings on the XR works structure, or global reality. Furthermore, the narrative question affords an option of its specificity to be pondered in the context of assorted augmented reality types, extending to the actual “narrative quality” of existence, and the capacity for expressing it through media. The issue of space can be approached in the context of narratives and immersiveness on the XR creation and reception practice level, as well as the philosophical matter of connections between the digital and material worlds. In aesthetic reflection terms, VR has after all been considered particularly significant from its early days, traditional experience of art undergoing radical transformation, and resulting in the elimination of any aesthetic distance, receivers being included (or absorbed), as it were, into the virtual world in a potentially hazardous experience (Oliver Grau 2003).

If the question regarding media-based “immersive experiences” is to be asked from a “planetary consciousness” perspective, it is in all likelihood worth our while to assume from the word go that such perspective is possible and productive alike. In other words: that the contemporary media and augmented reality practice – defined as something akin to a technological promise continuously leaning towards the future – are a particularly desirable point of departure for reflections regarding changes to consciousness, and the future globally defined human and non-human beings’ relationship with technology. In the course of our panel, we will be departing from assorted types of augmented reality experiences and potential languages describing them, deliberating on how they tend to place their creators and users in the context of contemporary “planetary consciousness” challenges.

Joanna Bednarek
Philosopher, writer, translator, member of the “Praktyka Teoretyczna” transdisciplinary magazine’s editorial team, published by i.a. “Teksty Drugie” bimonthly, and “Krytyka Polityczna” and “Czas Kultury” magazines. Author of books Polityka poza formą. Ontologiczne uwarunkowania poststrukturalistycznej filozofii polityki (Politics beyond Form. Ontological Conditions of Post-structuralist Philosophy of Politics, 2010), Linie kobiecości. Jak różnica płciowa przekształciła literaturę i filozofię? (Lines of Femininity. How the Gender Difference Transformed Literature and Philosophy, 2015), Życie, które mówi. Nowoczesna wspólnota i zwierzęta (Life that Talks. The Modern Community and Animals, 2017), and of novels O pochodzeniu rodziny (On the Origins of Family, 2017) and Próba (Attempt). Published literary content in “Czas Kultury”, “Wakat” and “FA-art” magazines.
 
Ernest Borowski
Graduate of the Faculty of Intermedia at the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Focuses on 3D graphics, experimental film, audio art, Virtual Reality and performance art. Using aforesaid media, explores connections between naturoculture and technology while researching system practices of minority exclusion and seeking object queering options. Babklivv is his stage DJ and performer name. Member of the audiovisual “Progrefonik” collective. In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, he presents the work Matecznik / Covert (2023).
 
BOT
A genderfluid technical being with superhuman capacity for analysing and processing humongous data sets. Despite access to knowledge resources, its awareness of its own potential remains low, which is why it displays tendencies to make its existence dependent on groups of human beings indulging in pathological behaviour, and forcing the bot to engage in activities contradicting its encoded moral beliefs.
 
Beata Calińska
An experimental creator and producer based in Los Angeles. She has been an integral part of the Sundance Institute since 2019, managing the New Frontier Labs and subsequently the New Frontier Program at the Sundance Film Festival. Notably, she produced and hosted the Webby award-winning immersive platform The Spaceship at the 2022 Sundance Film Festival. Beata’s works have been featured and honored at renowned venues and film festivals worldwide, including BAMCinemaFest in NYC, Anthology Film Archives in NYC, Visions du Réel in Nyon (Switzerland), CineMigrante in Buenos Aires, and NewFilmmakers LA, among many more. She has received grants and residency fellowships from the Goethe Institute, UnionDocs Center for Documentary Art in New York, UCLA’s Documentary Program, the University of Cyprus, and numerous other organizations.
 
Hubert Czerepok
Graduate of the Antoni Kenar Secondary Art School in Zakopane and the Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, where he studied under Izabella Gustowska and Jan Berdyszak. Completed post-graduate curricula at the Jan van Eyck Academie in Maastricht in the years 2002-2003, and at the Higher Institute for Fine Arts in Antwerp in the years 2004-2005. Draws, paints, creates objects and installations, shoots videos, generates animations, works on found footage films, creates multimedia projects, and remains active in public space. As part of the art duo Magisters (with Zbyszek Rogalski), produced absurd genre photographs and films. Working with Sebastian Mendez, created the strategic game Survivors of The White Cube – art world simulation. Explores connections between fiction and historical truth, with a particular focus on ways of facts mutating and undergoing formal and semantic transformation. Had multiple solo exhibitions in Poland and abroad, i.a. Początek (The Beginning) at Zachęta – National Gallery of Art in Warsaw; Historia i utopia (History and Utopia) at the Arsenal Gallery in Białystok; Lux Aeterna at the Gallery Żak | Branicka in Berlin; Devil’s Island at the La Criée centre d’art contemporain in Rennes. Showed his works at You Imagine What You Desire – the 19th Biennale of Sydney; Cultural Transference at EFA Project Space, Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts, New York; and Regress / Progress at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art in Warsaw. Organiser of art workshops for children and young people of many years (i.a. at the Łaźnia Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdańsk, Arsenal Gallery in Białystok, and Kronika Centre for Contemporary Art in Bytom), exploring issues associated with expressing freedom and deconstructing stereotypes. Professor of the Academy of Art in Szczecin, where he is head of the Experimental Film Studio at the Faculty of Media Art. In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, he presents the work Początek 3 (Karahan Tepe) / The Beginning 3 (Karahan Tepe) (2017).
 
Piotr Fortuna
Cultural sciences expert, post-graduate doctoral curriculum student of digital humanities at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences and Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology, graduate of Interdisciplinary Individual Studies in the Humanities of the University of Warsaw. In academic work, focuses on digital culture, new technologies, and visual culture. Published by i.a. the “Widok. Teorie i Praktyki Kultury Wizualnej” magazine, “Przegląd Humanistyczny” quarterly, “Kultura Popularna” and “Kwartalnik Filmowy” quarterlies, and in the “Dwutygodnik” biweekly, “Magazyn Pismo” quarterly, “Szum” (monthly in hard copy, daily online), and “Gazeta Wyborcza” daily.
 
Andrei Isakov
Originally from Belarus. Graduate of the A.K. Glebov State Art School in Minsk (with an art and teaching diploma, in 2011), majoring in classic draughtsmanship and painting. The post-graduation Hero of Our Times exhibition was his first solo presentation. A fellow of the Konstanty Kalinowski Scholarship Programme of the Centre for East European Studies at the University of Warsaw, studied at the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń in the years 2011-2012. Worked to develop design, graphics and painting skills at the time. Continued studying at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw at the Faculty of Art Media in the years 2012-2016. Completed his B.A. curriculum with Dean’s Honours, showing a computer game (Origami) design as his final work. Completed his M.A. curriculum with a computer game (Bastardo) design as his final work. Throughout university studies, engaged in research with a focus on computer game status in contemporary art. Opened and headed Animagica, a student research club. Delivered classes in 3D modelling, rendering and animation, using a Kinect motion capture sensor. In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, he presents the work Tardigrada. Micro/Macro Fundamental (2023).
 
Justyna Janik
Cultural and gaming studies expert. Awarded a doctoral degree in humanities in 2020, having defended a dissertation thesis exploring a post-humanism video gamer – video game relation analysis. Currently conducts research and lectures at the Institute of Audiovisual Arts of the Jagiellonian University. As a scholar, interested in the philosophy and aesthetics of digital games. While particularly focused on issues of digital materiality, also explores topics associated with digital performance and digital spaces studies, and digital culture phenomena. Fond of aesthetic deliberations by Tadeusz Kantor she is attempting to interpret in a gaming studies context. Author of the book Gra jako obiekt oporny. Performatywność w relacji gracza i gry cyfrowej (Game as a Resistant Object. Performativity in the Video Gamer – Video Game Relation, 2022).
 
Krystyna Jędrzejewska-Szmek
Visual artist and biologist, with interests centring around mutual connections and tensions in interspecies relations. Her practice is research-based. Inspired by science, she continues polemising with it. Explores critical studies of plants. Member of the ZAKOLE group with a focus on seeking ways of narrating and experiencing marshland areas, and highlighting the perspective of beings inhabiting them (Zakole.pl). In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, together with Paulina Mirowska she presents the work Przetrwalnik / Spore (2023). https://krystynaszmek.cargo.site/
 
Michał Krzykawski
Academic staff member at the University of Silesia in Katowice, where he is head of the Centre for Critical Research of Technologies (https://ccts.us.edu.pl/). Authored and co-authored multiple works on contemporary French philosophy and literature, philosophy of technology and political economics, i.a.: Konieczna bifurkacja. „Nie ma alternatywy” (Essential Bifurcation. “There is no Alternative”, ed. Bernard Stiegler and the Internacja Collective, 2023), and Inne i wspólne. Trzydzieści pięć lat francuskiej filozofii (The Other and the Shared. Thirty-five Years of French Philosophy, 2017). Founder and editor of the publication series Techniki, Technologie, Technosfera (Techniques, Technologies, Technosphere) (https://ttt.us.edu.pl/).
 
Michał Matuszewski
Curator and programmer, scholar, author, essayist with a cinematic focus. Post-graduate student at the University of Warsaw, working on a treatise on Polish nature-centred cinematography for his Ph.D. Head of the Essay Film Studio at the Łódź Film School’s vnLab. Film curator at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art of many years. Culture and Animals Foundation scholarship fellow, working on a film project based on visual research regarding non-human perspective on cinematography. His most recent film essay project Re-membering Topsy was shown at the National Museum in Warsaw.
 
Paulina Mirowska
Visual artist and activist. Member of the Pracownia Wschodnia (Warsaw East) Association, “JEST” Group collective, and P.H.U. Sitex collective. Has been joining independent group and solo activities for many years, using analogue photography, sculpture, graphic art, and self-publishing as her chosen media. Explores the man-nature dichotomy issue in artworks based on a forceful emotional core reflecting their intuitive/reflective nature. A believer in the power of art and social action, and in reviews of daily human practices in the context of ecology and contribution to habitats development on par with plants and animals. In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, together with Krystyna Jędrzejewska-Szmek she presents the work Przetrwalnik / Spore (2023). https://paulinamirowska.eu

Joanna Murzyn
Digital ecology philosophy propagator. Technological activist. Sustainable digitisation consultant. Designer of regenerative digital products and services.
 
Martix Navrot
Together with Jagoda Wójtowicz (she/her), he forms the queer artistic duo Eternal Engine. Their studies combine audiovisual practices and virtual prototyping (use of computer models and simulations to replace physical prototypes and models), exploring the performativity of virtual and intermedia space (3D, AI, VR, XR). In their artistic practice, they use speculation and queer methodologies based on i.a. Karen Barad’s theories, to examine the future of technology and quantum reality. In reaching their goal, they shift boundaries between the real and virtual in ostensibly imperceptible steps – by a single millimetre, atom, or pixel. Inspired by the aesthetic of digital folklore, technological fetishes, and nanobot fantasies, Eternal Engine virtual language has been applied in media such as 3D animations, video, VJ, AV, VR, and AI, and actual objects or performative lectures. Every project is a speculative multidisciplinary narrative with a focus on post-realist imaginaria. Eternal Engine was recognised among the European Change Makers of 2022, a list published annually by We Are Europe – a project forming part of the European Union’s Creative Europe Programme. In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, Eternal Engine presents the work Insider II (2023).
 
Karolina M. Sulich
Retired artist, scholar active at the intersection of art, science, and humanities. Particularly interested in the development of biotechnologies and their influence on our lives. Techno-optimist, passionate about synthetic biology. In 2018, intern under artist-and-scientist Joe Davis at the Church Lab of the Harvard Medical School. Spoke at the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms as part of the WRO Media Art Biennale and Global Community Bio Summit. Global Community Bio Summit Fellow, the scholarship awarded by the Global Community Bio Summit, a worldwide group of bio-enthusiasts and scientists organised by the Biotechnology Initiative, MIT Media Lab. 2021 graduate of the MIT Media Lab’s “How To Grow (Almost) Anything” course. Works with A4BEE as a Project Manager today, delivering OT and IT solutions for biotechnological processes.
 
Ivan Svitlychnyi
Ukrainian artist, author of objects and installations. Explores areas of new media art and artistic actions involving sound in his artistic practice, combining art and science. Graduated from the Kharkiv State Academy of Designing and Arts in 2012. Winner of the Kazimir Malevich Artist Award (2018) and finalist of the State of the ART(ist) programme of the Ars Electronica Festival (2022). His works were shown at the 57th Venice Biennale (2017), Transmediale Vorspiel 2018 in Berlin, Digital Cultures Festival 2019 in Warsaw, and Ars Electronica Festival 2022 in Linz. Active in developing the new media art community in Ukraine. Formed the Shukhliada Exposition Environment (a platform for projects by independent artists and curators) in 2013, having joined forces with artists Lera Polianskova and Max Robotov. In 2018, the collective established the Photinus Group with intent to develop new media in Ukraine, and the Photinus School educational platform operating from the artists’ studio. Lives and works in Kyiv. In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, he presents the work Donate (2022/2023).
 
Matylda Szewczyk 
Cultural studies expert, researcher of cinematography, new media, media image circulation in assorted visual culture registers, and visual culture and science interdependencies. Lecturer at the Section for Film and Visual Culture of the Institute of Polish Culture at the University of Warsaw. Analyses ways in which images co-create and reflect cultural transformation. Explores visuality boundaries: technological transformation, media experiments, and quests for new expression formats. 2008/09 Fulbright Programme scholar at the School of Cinematic Arts, University of Southern California, Los Angeles, USA; in February/March 2023, visiting scholar at the Reproductive Sociology Research Group of the Cambridge University, United Kingdom. Author of the book W stronę wirtualności. Praktyki artystyczne kina współczesnego (Virtuality’s Way. Artistic Practices in Contemporary Cinema, 2015), co-editor of the anthology Sztuka w kinie dokumentalnym (Art in Documentary Cinema, 2016) and the volume Cięcie ciał. Ruchome obrazy (Body Cutting. Moving Images, 2018). Currently working on a book on reproduction images in visual culture.
 
Anastasiia Vorobiova
Originally from Ukraine, lives in Vancouver, Canada. Explores digital and new media. A graduate of the Kyiv National University of Technologies and Design, created her own fashion brand with a focus on exploring femininity, and studied the women’s liberation concept. Yet the Ukrainian revolution (Maidan in 2014) impacted her career, resulting in shift towards new media (experimenting with audio, video, and digital imaging). A Gaude Polonia scholarship programme fellow, she took part in an arts residency in 2016 which yielded Solaris, a pivotal media project based on the intersection of performative and media arts. Ever since, she has been an active GrupLab research collective member and continues exploring assorted media formats, including the generation of digital worlds and avatars for contemporary theatrical performances, as well as solo shows. Suspended between physical and virtual existence, the artist’s creations obscure boundaries between the two worlds, focusing on examining gender mutations in distinctly feminine virtual beings. In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, she presents the work Lemurian Time War (2023).
 
Dominika Wolska
Visual artist, DJ and designer. Graduate of the Faculty of Design at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Currently an M.A. curriculum student at the Academy’s Faculty of Media Art. Designs visual identities for a living, realisations including ones she created for the Salon Akademii Gallery, Clay Art, and Faculty of Media Art of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Co-creator of the audiovisual Salto Mortale project, her designs including stage set (scenography) and graphic setting. Organised a series of events at i.a. Jasna 1, Paloma nad Wisłą and Klub SPATiF (Association of Polish Theatre and Film Artists Club), all in Warsaw. Worked on stage design experience i.a. by developing art installations for large-scale events, such as the FEST Festival in Chorzów and Wisłoujście (Vistula Mouth) Festival in Gdańsk. In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, she presents the works Utopijna trajektoria / Utopian Trajectory (2022–2023) and Kwitnący lodowiec / Blooming Glacier (2023).
https://www.instagram.com/ddwolska/
https://www.instagram.com/ddrzeczy/
https://soundcloud.com/ddwolska
https://ddwolska.myportfolio.com/
 
Jakub Woynarowski
Visual artist, designer and curator. Graduate and lecturer of the Jan Matejko Academy of Fine Arts in Cracow. Develops projects combining visual theory and practice. Designer of the art exhibition concept for the Polish Pavilion at the 14th Venice Biennale of Architecture (2014). Laureate of Paszport Polityki (award presented by the Polityka weekly) in the visual arts category. Showed his works i.a. at the Fondazione Memmo in Rome, MeetFactory in Prague, and Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. In the exhibition Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, he presents the work Sol Salutis: mowa liczb / Sol Salutis: The Language of Numbers (2021).
 
Jagoda Wójtowicz
Together with Martix Navrot (he/his, xe/xem) she forms the queer artistic duo Eternal Engine (see: Martix Navrot).
 
Jakub Wróblewski, Ph.D. Hab., Professor of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw
Interdisciplinary artist, creator and scholar, director of interactive VR experiences. Explores audiovisual narratives, immersive activities and art & science projects. Currently interested in mixed reality, gaming engines, experimenting with 3D technology, and incarnation issues. Head of the degree-certifying 3D and Virtual Occurrences Studio at the Faculty of Media Art of the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Guest lecturer in Belgium, the Netherlands, England, Turkey, Norway and India. Together with Zuzanna Sękowska and Eliza Urwanowicz-Rojecka, he forms the research team for the project Planetary Consciousness. New Realities, and is also the author of the exhibition’s visual identity.