”Engram”
– one man shows:
– Patio Art Center, Łódź, Poland, 2009;
– Chapel Gallery, Center of Polish Sculptures, Orońsko, Poland, 2009
link: http://archive.rzezba-oronsko.pl/index.php?aktualnosci,240,mariusz_soltysik_engram____
– Broadcast Gallery in Dublin Institute of Technology, Department of Fine Art, St. Josephs Convent, Ireland, 2009
The light of stars and the galaxies, which carries their image into the darkness, has been my fascination since childhood. While drawing star patterns on a window glass – to record their movement – I imagined the look and feel of intergalactic travels. I imagined them without fully grasping the vastness and multifariousness of the cosmic matter. The beauty of the Universe, as seen from the ninth floor of a block of flats, was a further way to escape from the sad reality of socialism.
Since then, I have learnt a bit more about the Universe, but it is still quite difficult to embrace the idea of something limit-less and untouchable. An image of a night sky conceals so much that it is impossible to consider it strictly scientifically or philosophically.
It seems that this idyllic image – of a man in the context of his achievements; of the vastness around our planet, implicating questions of the sense of existence – preserved as a memory trace (engram) would not stand the test when confronted with the reality created by us. And although, I can still watch the beauty of the start light, the world by itself and the human, who creates it, look dwarfish. Freud believed that human megalomania was hurt three times. The first one who did the act was Copernicus, who showed that Earth is not in the centre of the universe. Darwin was second. He pointed out that human race is not the chosen one, but one of many animal species. Finally, there was Freud himself who showed that there is no such thing as autonomous human soul. Human mentality is enslaved by the unconscious and the uncontrollable fo-rces of physiology and the mind. It is worth mentioning here as well Jacques Lacan, in whose opinion a child in order to become a ‘normal’ human must discard its imagined attitude to its mother, as well as its narcissism, so that it is possible for it to take its place in a symbolic order (a structural network of language and social roles defined by the family and environment). Certainly, the above are not novelties. However, through questioning myself, I wonder why they keep absorbing me now. Why does this particular engram come back to me in this context?
The answer is both simple and complex: clear and unclear – just like Quantum Theory. It is simple – because I watch myself ‘grooming’ my daughter for functioning in the society. It is complex because I do not see reasons for doing it. My fantabulous omni-world of ideas and imagination – does not exist – not even on a leash of genes (Richard Dawkins). How to constrain, so called, life drive; or to quote Baudrillard what do you do after the orgy? Baudrillard defines the moment after the orgy as the moment when modernity exploded on us, the moment of liberation in every sphere. What to do when everything spins around dispersing itself with every round. What to do when with every round we lose the values which used to determine the sense. As I have not got answers to these questions, only premonitions, I express the answers through the artwork presented at Engram exhibition.
”Stars” light installation consisted of thousand LED lamps.
The installation work ”Neutrinos Trap Stirring Up Cosmic Dust”
Some of us make an attempt to understand something. Neutrinos are being caught in the Antarctic; or in disused mines. There are persistent attempts to ‘see’ the black matter, or black holes through the use of some specialist equipment. The work is in particular for viewers who possess strong imagination. Although we are bombarded, non-stop, with neutrinos penetrating our atoms, it is very hard for us to believe in that…
technique: electric light, brocade, smoke machine.
”Vague Astronaut, or How to Get Lost In Outer Space” – the installation work – is a tragic figure, alone and looking into the sky, anxiously talking of his sense of being lost. The work makes reference to the state of affairs in our civilisation. It does not only pertain to the period of global crisis, or the crisis in some spheres of faith and science, but it concerns the general. Similar to the contemporary man, the figure is semitransparent, indistinct, vague…
In this work, I focus also on time. Broken-up pictures in slow motion suggest the direction of time, that we basically do not know. Time is highlighted as an element we can only virtually control.
”Vague Astronaut, or How to Get Lost In Outer Space” was exposed also in the Broadcast Gallery in Dublin Institute of Technology, Department of Fine Art, St. Josephs Convent, Ireland, 2009 in the one man show titled “In Limbo”. This installation was composed of three elements: drawings, sculpture, and video. Apparently, each of these elements was different, from a different medium, nevertheless they combined into a thematic unity (according to transmedia concept).
The installation work – ”White Dwarf” alludes to a term in physics describing the final evolutionary state of all stars. The gesture of pondering over a sphere (which conceptualises time without the beginning and end) held in one’s hand is, in a sense, an empty gesture. Who ponders over the sense of anything, and who has got time to do that? All is clear about the White Dwarf: it will go out. What was the value of its existence, then? What did its face look like? The video loop ”Transmission” was the part of ”The White dwarf” sculpture.
technique: resin, steel, salt and video loop entitled „Transmission” on small LCD screen;
The video ”River” represents a discovered and recorded situation between two cities in Poland. It shows sparkling with colour water, fused with some diesel like substance. The work is an abstract image, but also a sad, common beauty which we became immune to a long time ago.
The drawings from the series ”A Theory of Inflatable Universes, or What Can Be Seen in Bubble Bath”… make reference, on one hand, to the famous theory, formulated by Alan Guth and further developed by Andriey Linde, concerning the initial model of the universe which would lead to the formation of the one we know today. On the other hand, they lead to a simple situation which can be observed in the bath tub. The elaborate form of the drawings constitutes a genus of meditation. They indicate the multiplicity of theories; the power of imagination, but also they expose the weaknesses of the theories.
