Utopian Trajectory
2022-2023 | Dean's distinction | Video Installation / Generative Environment, Unreal Engine, Sound: Filip Kolodziejczak, Duration: ∞
Dominika Wolska's work is grounded in the concept of the Anthropocene as a new geological epoch, which is currently one of the most discussed and challenging issues. The artist ponders the impasse of the Anthropocene, labeled by Bernard Stiegler as the "epoch without an epoch." The impact of humans on the natural environment is undeniable. Unfortunately, it is often underestimated or even deliberately forgotten that we, humans, are responsible for critical changes occurring in the environment. However, the time has come to start thinking about the planet's future and ensuring its safety. According to Wolska, the category of the universal human species, encompassing a biological tendency for technological development and environmental crises, should be deconstructed. The advent of the Anthropocene would be impossible without technological advancement, and this, in turn, would not occur without a conducive policy that tolerates inequalities in labor and disruptions in the natural resource cycle.
In her work, Wolska creates a generative environment that, as a set of simulations, reflects geophysics. She presents a utopian vision of a world in which nature triumphs over the "age of man." Earth, with its geophysiolog, strives to optimize living conditions, even though geological force (understood as intense human activities on a global scale that significantly affect geological processes) disrupts the great cycles governing the planet's trajectory.
The accompanying composition by Filip Kołodziejczak is a collage of synthesized sounds stretched over time, with reverberations and echoes imitating vast, open, empty spaces from which occasional sounds emerge. They lack melody and sounds reminiscent of human instruments. The inspiration for the composition was field recordings made in polar regions.
See: B. Stiegler, The Neganthropocene, edited, translated, and with an introduction by Daniel Ross, London 2018.
Diploma realized in Pracownia 3D i Zdarzenia Wirtualne II; Dr. hab. Jakub Wróblewski Prof. ASP, Mgr. Andrei Isakov, Sebastian Sebulec
Blossoming Glacier
2022-2023 | Dean's distinction | Installation, Recycled Acrylic Glass (Plexiglas), Variable Dimensions
Dominika Wolska pays particular attention to phenomena that, as she writes, "dazzle us and illuminate uneven surfaces, if our eyes are penetrating enough to notice them in the blink of an eye, because beauty can only be captured fleetingly." Inspired by nature and the power of memory, she saturates her practice with sensitivity to materials and directs it towards extracting the emotional potential from everyday forms and objects. The installation serves as a kind of "memory of humanity" with its excessive production and consumption. Wolska works with synthetic materials, such as plexiglass, which she obtains from recycling or second-hand sources. She experiments with their properties and alters their structure, shaping them to evoke associations with nature and its transience. By using materials from the human environment of the Anthropocene era, the installation serves as a contrast to the projection of the rejuvenated generative environment in the work Utopian Trajectory.
Annex realized in Pracownia Alternatywnego Obrazowania; Prof. Włodzimierz Szymański [*], Mgr. Dorota Kozieradzka
