Hello Joanna and welcome to NotRandomArt. To start with, could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about your identity as a participant of the visual culture?
Thank you for your interest in my work, I think my artistic practice is closely related to the continually evolving post-digital culture, its evolving hybridity, forms and articulations. In my work, I question the cultural condition after digital technology revolutions. I tend to involve the experiential side of digitally created art to a conceptual level. For me, the conceptual logic is a part as important as the experiential side of an artwork. If every artwork produces some kind of aesthetic experience, only a part of them integrated a conceptual signification. That’s why I find fascinating the work of contemporary artists such as Philippe Parreno and Carsten Höller. They (among others) are able to retreat behind the idea of restoring experiential and intersubjective capacities of art and by the same time encouraging reflection. I’m also inspired by the work of artists from 1960/70s like (among others) Otto Piene, Gianni Colombo or Lucio Fontana. I believe you can find in my work the influence of Fontana’s idea to consider the flat surface as a three-dimensional work that records the passage of time and its interaction with light. Such a situated dimension of experience I’ve represented in my work BEHIND THE SCREEN through the line-cut of light that suggests the moment of suspended interaction but also the existence of another dimension and possibilities realities.
Would you like to tell us something about your artistical as well as life background?
I am an interdisciplinary artist born in Poland and I live and work in Paris. In the past years I was working as an architect, designer and researcher. I’ve studied architecture, art and new media design and I hold a PhD in Critical Theory of Architecture from University Paris-Est and a master degree in New Medias Art & Design from Ensci in Paris. I’m also the author of scientific publications that explore the multifaceted impact of digital technologies on the disciplines of art, design and architecture. I think that this academic experience helped me to understand better and to define myself through an artistic practice. I started to show my work(s) a few years ago and since then I‘ve exposed at LACADA Center For Digital Art Los Angeles, Artifact Exhibition at International Biennial of Design Saint-Étienne, Digital Image Exhibition at Athens Digital Arts Festival ADAF 2016 and International Exhibition on Conceptual Art Concept at the CICA Museum Gimpo-si, South Korea.
What in your opinion defines a work of art? And moreover, what could be the features that mark the contemporariness of an artwork?
In my opinion the contemporariness of an artwork reflects the dynamic combination of concepts, subjects, medium and methods that challenges traditional boundaries but at the same time defies easy definition of art. There are of course a lot of possibilities to define a work of art but diversity and eclecticism of the contemporary art is distinguished by the very lack of a uniform organizing principle or ideology. In a globally influenced, culturally proliferated, and technologically advancing world, diverse contemporary artists give voice to the varied and changing cultural landscape of identities, values, and believes. That is why I think that curiosity, openness and dialogue are the most important tools that are engaged with a contemporary artwork.
Is there any particular way you would describe your identity as an artist but also as a human being in dynamically changing, unstable times? In particular, does your cultural substratum/identity form your aesthetics?
As a part of X generation, I’m very sensitive to the subject of individual and collective identity changing process in the digital era. One of my work(s) named HIDDEN F@CES brings out this subject. It is a series of portraits that explore the overexposure of self-image as an exponential phenomenon flooding social networks. My idea was to go against the current trends and to self-hide behind the veil of pixels. Created in this way the "hidden" portraits are made using cross digital techniques to conceptually reconsider the true value of stylish self-images that can be also seen as a search for identity in the post-digital era.
I think that by merging various traditional and digital technics and also conceptual and experiential approaches, I create some kind of substratum for all my work(s). As an artist I want to explore the possible interpretations of what’s real by creating visual language and conceptual experiment in altered representations.
What interests me in life is reality. The reality of an actor and of the theater stage, the real of an event, object, situation. Being there, the research of the present. Even if I never succeed. Maybe that's why I began by wanting to be an actress, this art of presence.
My first video was the first reading of Raymond Federman “The voice on the closet”, under the eye of the camera until I lost my own voice. I needed to say it in order to be able to read it. Basically what I was filming was my own discovery of the text. But also the violence of this text without any punctuation, telling the locking up of the author in a closet as a child to escape a nazi raid.
There is a little dialog in the movie “Alphaville” from Jean-Luc Godard,
- How is the truth?
- This is between appearing and disappearing
I realize that I didn't really answer the question by saying that... Thank you for your interest in my work, I think my artistic practice is closely related to the continually evolving post-digital culture, its evolving hybridity, forms and articulations. In my work, I question the cultural condition after digital technology revolutions. I tend to involve the experiential side of digitally created art to a conceptual level. For me, the conceptual logic is a part as important as the experiential side of an artwork. If every artwork produces some kind of aesthetic experience, only a part of them integrated a conceptual signification.
That’s why I find fascinating the work of contemporary artists such as Philippe Parreno and Carsten Höller. They (among others) are able to retreat behind the idea of restoring experiential and intersubjective capacities of art and by the same time encouraging reflection. I’m also inspired by the work of artists from 1960/70s like (among others) Otto Piene, Gianni Colombo or Lucio Fontana. I believe you can find in my work the influence of Fontana’s idea to consider the flat surface as a three-dimensional work that records the passage of time and its interaction with light. Such a situated dimension of experience I’ve represented in my work BEHIND THE SCREEN through the line-cut of light that suggests the moment of suspended interaction but also the existence of another dimension and possibilities realities.
Multidisciplinarity seems to be a crucial aspect of your approach and it`s remarkable the way you are capable of creating such effective symbiosis between elements from different techniques, manipulating language and recontextualizing images and concepts. While crossing the borders of different disciplines is the only way to achieve some results, to express some concepts?
I have always worked with several mediums, from my first theater show. It is not really a choice but a kind of evidence for me. That is like cooking, using lots of different elements / ingredients. Not to mix would be like cooking with one single ingredient. I draw, make photo, video, installation, theater-performances, and often mix them. Maybe it is because I am trained in anything, I have no specialization, so I'm really good in anything, that does not mean I am good for nothing... I tinker, I'm interested in the do-it-yourself. Most of the time when I have an idea, the medium comes at the same time. And each time it is a different one. I don't choose it because I think it will be better for my idea. It is not strategic but much more intuitive. was very happy to take time drawing these last year, because of the particular relation to time I have doing that. All the series Either the well was very deep, was like a long dive inside our own inner well. But I discovered it little by little, while I was making it.
Before leaving this conversation we would like to pose a question about the nature of the relationship of your art with your audience. Do you consider the issue of audience reception as being a crucial component of your decision-making process, in terms of what type of language is used in a particular context?
have no specialization, so I'm really good in anything, that does not mean I am good for nothing... I tinker, I'm interested in the do-it-yourself. Most of the time when I have an idea, the medium comes at the same time. And each time it is a different one. I don't choose it because I
a human being in dynamically changing, unstable times? In particular, does your cultural substratum/identity form your aesthetics?
all started at the Academy of Fine Arts in Trondheim, Norway, in the mid 90's and with my research in Video Art and the History of Video Art. During that period, I experimented with the cameras available at the time, such as Hi8, Super-8, and DV. I learned how to edit using Avid and produced numerous small experimental art films. Conceptually, I was inspired by video artists such as Nam June Paik, Bill Viola, and Bruce Naumann amongst many others. I used effects and experimental sound in my films. It was a very exciting time for my development, and I explored all kinds of filmic work, from 80's video art to more experimental directors of the time, such as Peter Greenaway, Jim Jarmusch, and Hal Hartley as well as the greats such as Federico Fellini, Luis Buñuel, and Jean-Luc Godard. So my work was shaped by this strange hybrid of influences: everything from animated MTV shorts to deeply conceptual post modernistic cinema.
Later on, I started to build video installations, combined with photography, objects and performance. From this, I started to become involved with stage art and independent dance and theatre. Several directors have given me the time and space to experiment using multiple video projectors, and my work has become an active element onstage, sometimes interacting with the performers. Every project has been useful in some way for exploring and refining my ideas. Now in my capacity as film director, I'm able to call upon my experiences gained from working as a cross disciplinary artist.
Your artworks are revolving around the problem of social identity and cultural affiliations. Is there any particular way you would describe your identity as an artist but also as a human being in dynamically changing, unstable times? In particular, does your cultural substratum/identity form your aesthetics?
I belong to a minority group in society and that identity is always a part of me and my work. I don’t believe my artworks are changing due to unstable times but that I'm working my way through a theme and a method over time. The content of my work is becoming more and more personal and I think that is because I dare to be more honest with myself. What I find interesting to work with is in my immediate presence. When I collaborate with stageartists, we often focus on a current political theme. In these collaborations I work more as an art activist and have a broader openess for the aesthetics. My work is then more experimental with research on different ways to develop live presentations in the space.
Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about race
and ethnic identity in visual culture?
“Revolted by the Thought of Known Places… Sweeney Astray” by Joan Jonas was one of the first performance installations that really made a huge impact on me. I was living in Paris during this time, in the early 90s, with a lot of influences from different cultures. It became the starting point of my own work. Joan Jonas practice has explored ways of seeing, the rhythms of ritual, and the authority of objects and gestures. Jonas continues to find new layers of meanings in themes and questions of gender and identity that have fueled her art for over thirty years. She is a great inspiration still today.
It is impossible to avoid the topic of body consciousness, embodied emotions and the image of body and personal identity that we see in your practice. What is the function of the identity appearing in your artworks – is it a canvas used to present your ideas or rather the subject of the art? What inspired you to use this as a theme in your practice?
I have been developing my visual imagery since I began studying art and film - from conceptual thinking, composition, using light and colour in different ways, through all the different techniques I've utilised over the years in my work and in my collaborations with stage artists such as dancers, musicians and actors. My approach is always developing through exploring these things. Visual imagery in essence is your way of experiencing what you see and transforming it. This is my world that I want to share and express through my art. The body consciousness, embodied emotions and the image of body and personal identity is part of this visual imagery, the emotional essence in my practice. Always present and always developing in different themes and projects.
Marina Abramovic stated: You see, what is my purpose of performance artist is to stage certain difficulties and stage the fear the primordial fear of pain, of dying, all of
which we have in our lives, and then stage them in front of audience and go through them and tell the audience, 'I'm your mirror; if I can do this in my life, you can do it in yours.'Can you relate anyhow to these words?
de-identify myself, by losing my roots, my culture, I would be very happy. Unfortunately the human being does'nt choose the place where he is born. He grows up in a society that automatically identifies, through education, culture, family... More than ever I think it's more important to go on a way of self-knowledge with the aim to meet “the other”.. This other without which we can not exist. It's the same for the artist. It is more important for me to be focused on my practice than to try to define it according to esthetic criteria of identification. It's probably the reason i like to remember the painter Matisse who said or wrote that an artist must never be prisoner of himself, prisoner of a style, prisoner of a reputation.
Would you like to tell us something about your background? Could you talk a little about experiences that has influence the way you currently relate yourself to your artworks?
All my way is influenced by encounterings.
It began by the meeting with my professor of literature at school. More than giving French or Literature classes, she brought us to discover texts, movies, plays, visual artworks and to think about on what we saw or read.. Thanks to her that I met Pierre Vincke, a theatredirector who was worjink in the tradition of Grotowski ... Both of them have led me to go to theater school. In this school I had meetings. Meetings with artists but also and especially human beings that made me discover. I always need o discover rather than to master a practice. It's probably the reason my encounter with Monica Klingler and Boris Nieslony was decisive for me and led me on the path of Performance Art which is a form still difficult to define. Each performance artist has a different definition of what it is...
Could you identify a specific artwork that has influenced your artistic practice or has impacted the way you think about race and ethnic identity in visual culture?
No I don't have a specific artwork that has influenced my artistic practise but many.
I'm influenced by some philsophers as well as poets or musicians or dancers or visual artists but also by some places or landscapes or atmospheres ... For some years, I was used for example to go to India where I was used to follow some traditionnal muscians or to learn bharatanatyam and practice vipassana meditation... Of course this experience has impacted my art work.... This brought me to think and work differently... My experience in India brought me to discover traditionnal strong art and paradoxally to the way of Performance Art. But there I see one common point: to make no separation between art and life and to be here and now, without projection on the future.
It's difficult for me to speak about race and ethnic identity. But I can say that today we miss more and more this notion of “to be here and now” which is more present in some cultures ... By practising Performance Art, it's my way to be connected to this way of thinking. And even in this field actually it's more and more difficult. The society and the art world brings us more and more to plan in advance, to define our work, more than to do. Just to do. To do what we deeply need.
And of course, my encountering with Black Market International and later the notion of Open Source or Open session via PAErsche have also a big impact on my work. When we go on that, each of us perform by sharing time and space but without trying to convince each other on some common way. This is for me a wonderfull way how we can meet each other, regardless of our origin, our race or our “identity”...
Many of your works carry an autobiographical message. Since you transform your experiences into your artwork, we are curious, what is the role of memory in your artistic productions? We are particularly interested if you try to achieve a faithful translation of your previous experiences or if you rather use memory as starting point to create.
My memory is clearly a starting point to create. I don't have any autobiographical message. I use my personnal experience ( what I feel , what I see, what I learn, what I ear...) to work. It's a motor or a material. I'm not able to paint, so I can't do something with red or white or yellow or black colors. All I have is life, a body alive. And I need to do something with that...
My sensation about life sometimes is too intense then I need to transform this intensity in some action. Some artistic action... If people can take something from this action this is great... but I don't want to give them “a specific message” or to control the translation of my experience.