Gallery 1
5.06 - 13.06.1999

Piotr Wyrzykowski

and "44" (WWW) interactive educational programs

Piotr Wyrzykowski, a young artist from Gdansk, is one of the most interesting Polish artists, working in so called new media (video, computer, internet art). He was highly prized in prestigious festivals both nationwide and abroad. He is also known for his various performances. He concentrates on the issues of technologies' influences on a perception of presence of a human body. Phenomena such as telepresence, that is a possibility of existing in a number places simultaneously through a television transmission are a tool for extending our corporeality. This was a central matter in Piotr Wyrzykowski's work "There is No Body," (http://cukt.art.pl/) realized in 1998. It consisted of a virtual person, existing in cyber space, which could be freely deformed and manipulated by a viewer.

Quick Time Movie 506KB

Cyborg's Sex Manual is a kind of manual that could happen in a near future. This is a very specific type of a textbook initiating boys and girls into a complicated world of emotions, love and affection. Cyborgs, compilations of hi-tech machines and a humans, constitute a prospective audience of this project. The author claims that such creatures do exist, basing his knowledge on the research done by CUKT (Technical Culture Central Office) in the years 1995 to 1997.

This constructed game allows to talk in a new and direct way about "dangerous" issues such as love, responsibility, affection, identity, limits of corporeality and an essential need of privacy and contact with the other person. Displacement of this project into a sphere of fantasy was a necessary requirement for achieving distance to these issues. The visual work is accompanied by a hypertext, titled About the developed body of a technical culture, which not only changes work's context but also give it a new function. Promotion of this program in a form of CD-ROMs, and an advertising campaign in magazines, billboards and the Internet are also an integral part of the work.

Boleslaw Chrobry (992 - 1025)

Jadwiga (1384 - 1399)

Stanislaw August Poniatowski (1764 - 1795)