Agnieszka Polska

Demon's Brain

Easily and weightlessly, Agnieszka Polska reaches for contemporaneous philosophy, social and economic theory, psychoanalysis and history, as well as cybernetic vernacular. She explores them out of the box, in terms of the narrative and artistic expression alike. Her practice observably owes much to Sara Ahmed’s thought, the politics of emotions and affects in particular. Reflections regarding measures used to define and validate the essence of artistic practice in this day and age are of equal importance, as are deliberations of art generating greater societal reverberation, not least in referencing Yuk Hui’s concept of recursivity.

The artist has developed her own artistic language, at once hypnotising and aesthetically and ethically consistent. She does not seek to avoid experimentation, or the language of speculation. Her video works are a combination of traditional cinematographic techniques and Artificial Intelligence capacities, the Stable Diffusion model included. She blends the use of archives with open licence-sourced content. Precise in merging the audio with the visual, she builds remarkably immersive environments for her works.

Storytelling is a key component in her practice. Polska believes in the power of the narrative as an implement impacting the process of shaping societal imagination, and the course of history. The tale becomes a medium and spore of information.

In the narration stratum, Agnieszka Polska explores deeply contemporaneous themes of technological and ecological transformation and ways in which they intermingle, never forgetting that all are well-grounded in history. Combined with the ambiguousness of pondering the future, such exact topics are palpable in works shown at the exhibition: Demon’s Brain, The Book of Flowers, Birds in Space i Two-Headed Horse. All are magnetic and meditative, exaggerated and modest in equal measure. Far from direct in content, they invite critical perception, thought and dreams. They are a total experience. Their power lies in the viewer’s inability to respond to them with indifference.