„I STARTED WRITING BUT PAPER ABSORBED ME”. THE VISION OF ENDLESS DURATION IN MULTIMEDIA...

CYBEREmpathy ISSUE 3/2013. Soluble Fish in Insoluble RealityGrażyna Pietruszewska-Kobiela, „I started writing but paper ...

www.CyberEmpathy.com

Grażyna Pietruszewska-kobiela„i StaRted wRitinG But PaPeR aBSORBed Me”. the ViSiOn OF endleSS DURATION IN MULTIMEDIA EXPERIMENTS OF ANDRZEJ GŁOWACKI

Bibliographic description to this article:

„I started writing but paper absorbed me”. The vision of endless duration in multimedia experiments of Andrzej Głowacki /G. Pietruszewska-Kobiela. CyberEmpathy: Visual Communication and New Media in Art, Science, Humanities, Design and Technology. ISSUE 3 /2013. Soluble Fish in Insoluble Reality. ISSN 2299-906X. Kokazone. Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web. URL: http://www.cyberempathy.com/#!issue3article1/cq00

Our hanging gardens, paradise’ tree will remain with us forever. Experiencing paradise will become something obvious. The concept of space and its structure will change not only in design but also in the experience1.

[…] here is the new Era coming, and supposedly spherical world again takes the form of the

disk, with the only difference in this disc being a CD 2.

Cited fragments of utterance bring us into a space where multithreaded new-renaissance reflection is developing, concerning, inter alia, human life in a world dominated by technology that causes a number of phenomena requiring evaluation, verifying of traditional views on art, literature, metaphysics, identity conditions of a modern man... A creator located in the heart of current

1 A. Głowacki, Od empatii do cyberprzestrzeni. O komunikacji wizualnej w przestrzeni publicznej, b.m.w, 2011, no page numbers. Fragments taken from this book will be tagged (OE), with page’ numbers, where the author provided them.

2 Z. Fajfer, Liberatura: hiperksięga w epoce hipertekstu. [in:] Liternet.pl, ed. by P. Marecki, Krakow 2003, p. 10.

GRAŻYNA PIETRUSZEWSKA - KOBIELA

Senior Research & Teaching Fellow at Jan Długosz University in Częstochowa conducting research in the Department of Literature Theory and Centre of Comparative Studies of Culture. Former journalist connected for many years with the University, also as rector (2 terms), and dean (2 terms). Author of works bout 20th century Polish literature and numerous articles about art and literature in 20th and 21st century, researcher of phenomena in new media, chief editor and co-editor of interdisciplinary books devoted to motives in Polish and German literature and children’s world.



reflections is seen as the author of the vision of earthly life determined by a variety of technical advances alluding to the tradition of ancient myths which refer to a cave – the place where thousands of years ago a man has perpetuated in cave drawings’ form his vision of the world, which is an intertext referring also to a cave of philosophers, provoking reflection on the limits of human knowledge. In created by Andrzej Głowacki dimension, transgressed processes occur pushing away from a man the idea of the end - of the world, life, myths, culture, objects ... giving awareness that every moment initiates some start – of thoughts, words, events... From the mythical world of chaos the world of eternal duration, transformation, scooping a new meaning, life-giving decay, synergetic relationships, human-machine symbiosis emerges. A specificity of the cultural foundation of this view reveals a quote coming from Archetypture of Word or anti-tales:

I bear on my back a bundle full of old snakes and snakebites, while going I know new things will happen to us because there is a trustworthy shepherd in me full of power of imagination, I know that letters have the gematric power that they are an image of a marketplace, sometimes they show clear connections potential of the symbolic signs as hidden fossils my plan of the small world is not for a profane the world of apparent illogicalities contradictions seemingly chaotic, like darkness and lack of measurements a geometric point but with a temperature of those, who are sending an energy motion circular end of the journey in the mountains of darkness I found the right time inextricably linked with the time adventurer, because to me the text is important when it is alive and it is alive when it is born

you wake me with your existence but rather by the fact you are who you are in your existence I hope that someday we will be able to read as dimensionally as we think”3.

The statement, which is an auto-characteristic of artistic orientation, shows that Głowacki, a professor, who initiates the multidisciplinary research including new visual and multi-media phenomenon occurring in an environment of modern man, looks for innovative ways of use of the image in the transfer of information, documentaries and advertising4, designer, graphic artist, philosophical art theorist, architectural visionary, books’ author, performer, editor-in-chief of the international scientific artistic journal “CyberEmpathy, Cyberhumanity, Visual Communication & New Media Review”5, takes action in reality creating

3 A. Głowacki, Archetyptura słowa czyli antybajki, b.m.w. 2009. Cites coming from this book will be tagged as AS, without page numbers, because the author does not provide them.

4 Por. komunikacjawzualna.wsiz.pl/o-nas, zespol-naukowy,Adrzej-Glowacki.html?galeria=page1 , read 15.07.2012.

5 www.CyberEmpathy.com, read 1.XII.2012.

http://www.CyberEmpathy.com



the fantasy (which is factually shaped by technological breakthroughs and full of new ideas causing the research pressure the possibility) prompting the multiplication of entities, which are undergone by a modern man who constantly is experimenting, collecting new devices around him, connecting old forms to the new ones with their help, exploring the horizons of perception and expanding the limits of dreams through the exploiting the capabilities of modern technology immersed in the tradition of ancient myths and archetypes. An artist, who is weaving reflections on the experience of modernity, refers to the myth of a journey, travel, boating, navigation – which is a strategy used by the creators who are exploiting the potential of the new media, who are aware, like in this case, of the existence of the phenomena of cultural continuum6 and who promote an ergodic art. This concept reveals the two basic levels of culture related to the new media - the layer of “old myths” and the layer built by virtual “landscapes”/arcades created by modern technology. This weave reveals the special experience of space related to the places’ “visiting” and the presence in the dimensions unknown and unavailable to everyone, what makes that appearing in Głowacki’ prose hero/wanderer constitutes his identity through specific spatial experience7 and contact with the kind of sound’ landscape, because as the cited quotation of gematric value of letters reveals the esoteric belief in the vibration of words, names and numbers. The artist is coming closer at the same time, which is a typical solution for the postmodern/mythological creation, to the magical power of tarot, runes, and to the belief in the creative power of the word, rooted in the religion and traditions of genesis. Present in this case, the visual and audio spaces dialogue can be seen as a metaphorical image reviewing cultural paradigm transformation’ process which intensifies the dialogue between the verbal and the visual8. However, the dream of the emergence of a spatial reading is a projection of a cyborg’ type, which seems to be a consequence of existence in the postmodern world artists/cyborgs; their works after all are addressed to a recipient who is “constructed” the same way as a creator9. It should be noted that the futuristic idea of a new type of reading

6 L. Manovich stresses the universality of this strategy, inter alia, in, Język nowych mediów, transl. by P. Cypryański, Warsaw 2006, p. 384.

7 The importance of this kind of experience building the identity through the contact with a place is stressed by K. Prajzner, Wirtualne spacery. Struktury przestrzenne w grach komputerowych, „Kultura Współczesna” 2010, is. 3 (65), p. 152.

8 G. Pietruszewska-Kobiela gives the wider description of changes in his, Rejestr zgiełku w awangardowych tekstach kultury XX i XXI wieku. [in:] Przestrzeń zgiełku. Przestrzenie wizualne i akustyczne człowieka. Antropologia audiowizualna jako przedmiot i metoda badań, v. 3, ed. by J. Harbanowicz, A. Janiak, Wrocław 2012, p. 117-119.

9 More on this kind of creators in: G. Pietruszewska-Kobiela, Język poezji cybernetycznej, [in:] Język nowej literatury, ed. by K. Michalewskiego, Lodz 2012, p. 103-113.



involves the conviction of progressive change of communication standards10. In The philosophical-fairytale theory that specific technique was described by an artist as follows: “We read, judging style, we discover polysyllabic wealth, and our mind gives motion and mood to it. Step-by-step we intuitively flee into the third dimension, we illustrate by space. The concept of the literature in space is a balancing act between the power of habit and the metaphor of a form, an art and an art playing which allows for a variety of view of many climates, based on the natural tendency of a mind to imaginary constructing. The concept of the literature in the space is also a balancing act of stability and instability of a structure of a literary text transferred into the structure of a three-dimensional space “(OE, p.40). Referring to the elements, embedded in the subconscious, supports and illustrates this vision and helps to create a man endowed with special characteristics of perception and creative abilities:

she said to me that her eye can see beyond the horizon and that there is nothing there but beams and structures of our world then we came back saddened to create a new world [...] I am happy, when I look outside up and down then she comes rather shape of her living representation and we descend down safely.”11. (RR, no p.n.)

A belief in the unification of the physical reality and cyberspace constitutes a reality occurring in visual works and mythical humanoid texts, where a post-human body functionalizes. This seemingly futuristic project and effect of its implementation is almost daily experience of the artist - a master who leads works of young students of art and science, initiating numerous around-graphic actions. Heating maps (created and recorded by the professor and his students/colleagues), the maps of points of view complete famous paintings and commonly watched commercials; eye movements paint pictures. The map of an eye tracker, who is observing the way the human eye is wandering, creates a surreal reality reminding of artworks from the beginning of XX century. All of these show us that the artist is looking for solutions that illustrate the singularity of effects of the connection between a man and a machine, and attaches a great importance to the imaging realm. However, in theoretical statements he indicates that the dominance of the image, without which a modern man can’t make it, is not so obvious phenomenon, since before strengthening of the position of the iconic realm there was a general view that the sacrum and the transcendence are beyond the reach of human mind, thus they cannot be put iconically. This reflection shows that the artist’s concepts are located within the context of broad

10 More on this topic is said by B. Witosz, Genologia lingwistyczna, zarys problematyki, Katowice 2005, p. 182.

11 A. Głowacki, Rozpuszczalna ryba w nierozpuszczalnej rzeczywistości czyli niecały ja andrzej czy paweł głowacki, b.m.w, 2009, no page numbers. – cites will be tagged as RR.



in time cultural changes. Głowacki, noticing a privilege of image in modern times12, exposes the rank of visual semantics, claiming at the same time the need of finding a balance between content and form. When it comes to artistic concepts he emphasizes the importance of verbal and pictorial media, because he is interested in both figurative and textual narrations; his concept reveals the belief that the record, always having some esthetic potential, also creates an image. He notes that verbal and pictorial forms penetrate each other and, moreover, the same content circulates among them. The cycle of the journey shows the over-mediation phenomenon, which causes that we learn about the same narrations in versions passed by the various media, what - despite their repetition - provides customers a feeling of freshness13. This procedure ensures the persistence of “eternal youth” of artistic concepts, hence Głowacki’s artworks and texts are characterized by originality of visual semantics - which is also achieved by referring to the poetic of oneiric imagination.

Endless duration, eternal freshness, a kind of indestructibility get linked, among others, with the book, which shape is affected by the image-dominance phenomenon14, a sign of modern culture. The artist noted: “[...] if the phenomenon of visual message primacy over [...] purely textual one is increasingly common, why would then it avoid a contemporary book and literature?”15 Starting of the process of “book virtualization” can be seen in his ideas, stating that “new media set a new way of traveling through the land of content”16, requiring from the writers and artists some specific obligations for formal experiment which is undertaken by Głowacki and simultaneously subjected to a scientific insight. The artist enters the area of phenomena which appear from the mixing of various circuits and styles of transfer, literature genres combined with media forms, so that he creates works that are an exemplification of troubled genres17, animating phenomena which occur from the coexistence of inconsistent discourses 12 The artist presents his views on images in the article Kłótnia o Obrazy a współczesny ikonodulizm, Bistro.edu.pl – internet newspaper, read 15.VI.2012, claiming that the contemporary image became a god.

13 The phenomenon is characterized by the following statement: „Today we live in the culture where content is constantly penetrating the various media. The same stories we learn from books, movies, video games, comic books, television series. We see the same narratives, but in every case in a different way. The story changes the character going from medium to medium, moving around in the media created by complicated relationships between different media”, M. Sieńko, Przemediowanie tekstu – o tym jak opowieść przekracza medialne granice, [in:] Tekst (w) sieci. Tekst. Język. Gatunki, v. 1, at ed. D. Ulickiej, Warsaw 2009, p. 187.

14 Condition of a book in the age of electronic media development becomes a reflection of many contemporary intellectuals, com. U. Eco, Nowe środki masowego przekazu a przyszłość książki, transl. by A. Szymanowski, [in:] Nowe media w komunikacji społecznej w XX wieku, ed. by M. Hopfinger, Warsaw 2005, p. 537-544.

15 A. Głowacki, Architektura przekazu literackiego w dobie nowych mediów, [in:] Język nowej literatury…, p. 46.

16 A. Głowacki, ibidem, p. 50.

17 C. Geertz, O gatunkach zmąconych (Nowe konfiguracje myśli społecznej), trans. by Z. Łapińska, [in:] Postmodernizm. Antologia tekstów, ed. by R. Nycza, Krakow 1997, p. 214-230.



derived from a methodological pluralism and flexibility of conceptualization, which are significant for designer forms creating a new type of communication environment18. A belief is revealing that the “book” literature appearing in the “digital world”, must be different, as it reflects the human experience in every day contact with new media19. Therefore, the author takes actions that lead to making a writing more iconic and an image more writable20, what should be seen as a manifestation of awareness of existence of the phenomenon of media penetration, significant for broadband culture combining various forms of media, connecting different aesthetic qualities, linking unparalleled axiological systems and requiring from a recipient to be dynamically and cognitively engaged21.

Surreal unpredictability is the author of Soluble Fish in Insoluble Reality element initiating symbiotic bonding of human with multimedia devices, moving freely in the cyberspace, being conscious of fragile and fractal nature of the world, inspired by the modern theoretical physics. Głowacki’s entire hitherto work shows that he sees the world in artistic, scientific and technical terms entering into post-humanity reflection areas which must be read in the context of the idea of a new renaissance, the intellectual concepts which imply an agreement between science and art, affirming closer ties between technology, art and studies, what leads to demarcation of new patterns affecting art strategies22. Somatic/ontological limits of a human being are regarded as unstable; symbiotic existence of a man connected with a machine is seen as an unsurprising phenomenon. In one of his interviews the artist claimed: “[...] with my creation I’m taking everybody to the confines of humanity”23, in the next article he noted: “we already have the first prosthesis with sensory impressions, responsive to touch, heat, cold. We are no longer able to differ an artificial handshake-palm from a natural one”24. The idea of the ecumene of machines 18 Design characteristics and related to it methodological condtitions are characterized Marcin Składanek, Wprowadzenie, desing jako wyzwanie, „Kultura Współczesna” 2009, is. 3, p. 14-17.

19 The significance of the impact of new media on “paper” literature, “paper” is followed by E. Szczęsna, Czy nowa epoka? Odpowiedź szukana w poezji (i nie tylko), [in:] Nowe Dwudziestolecie (1989-2009). Rozpoznania, hierarchie, perspektywy, ed. by H. Gosk, Warsaw 2010, p. 506-507.

20 The presence of this proces in contemporary culture is mentined by P. Bogacki, Obrazy, które mówią. O możliwościach ikonologicznej analizy literatury hipertekstowej, [in:] Tekst (w)sieci. Literatura. Społeczeństwo. Komunikacja, v.2, ed. by A. Gumkowskiej, Warsaw 2009, p. 122-129.

21 In connection to noticed features the contemporary culture is characterized by identified for broadband culture is characterized by L. Gołębiewski, E – książka. Book. Szerokopasmowa kultura, Warsaw 2009, p. 82-92.

22 The proces is followed by P. Zawojski, Cyberkultura. Syntopia sztuki, nauki i technologii, Katowice 2010, p. 19-41.

23 The fragment of the interview with A. Głowacki, Album sztuki krakowskiej, 1995, is available at www.youtobe.com/watch?NR=18, read on 29.07.2012.

24 A. Głowacki, Internet jako super mózg, Bistro.edu.pl/artykul – an internet newspaper, date of access

http://www.youtobe.com/watch?NR=18

http://www.youtobe.com/watch?NR=18



and a human is fulfilled by the vision of the architectural object connected to human organism, reflections on the phenomenology of architecture shows that architectural objects have a remarkable “aura” linking them to the dimensions in which they are embedded. The relationship between a man, a machine, and architecture completes the book project referring to the tactile kind of a contact with a customer. Once again cyborg metaphor breaks ontological boundary between the natural and the artificial, a human body changes its status (granted inviolability of its borders is shaken by this), technological experiment shows instability of guarantee of coherent subjectivity. The emergence of the cyborg is a sign of cultural/mental changes taking place in the time of dissemination of techno-science, techno-art, that create a new myth about the beginning, without birth, as cyborg comes not from a womb but from a matrix. It is evident, however, that a being created by the artist has relatives in the bio and tech world, what makes us realize that it is endowed with complex partial identity, it is in a slot - between two worlds, it has psychic abilities, it moves freely among these areas.

The concept of Głowacki’s creative activity grows from the conviction that a human body is no longer limited, as well as architecture; a subject and a book are now beyond their ontological framework. But the artist, affirming the idea of trans-humanism (which is at the same time a condensed recognition of the beginning and of the end), does not manifest a naive faith in the saving power of technology, in the article Internet as a super brain he noted: “Is it possible to manipulate the unit from the Internet super-brain level? In a sense, this is already happening when the Google Adwords application is sending me links on the topic of conversation held currently on Gmail. It does so on the basis of the words that I use. But I always have the freedom to choose: to click or not to click? [...] Internet (through another application - Google Bookmars) allows to create one’s own lists of web content and to share them with other users. Does it collect more data this way? Or does it create this way little worms - circles which organize and manage Internet content? Small worms - small galaxies within cyberspace. Until the time self-processing of this information comes, a kind of self-awareness - Internet will say to itself: <I think, therefore I exist>”25. The quoted passage reveals the care of enthusiast, whose daily work tools include optoelectronic devices supporting human senses, allowing the new opportunities of creation - such as virtual cave, 3D printer, 3D scanner, motion capture, enabling the transfer of elements coming from the imagination to the real world and moving a human from the reality to the multi-dimensional virtual world. Opuntia’s author works show that a sense of the breach of boundaries between a dream and a real dimension is primarily a manifestation of the artist’s

31.07.2012.

25 A. Głowacki, ibedem.



state of mind, his creativity, liberation from the convenance, an expression of activities of human who keep forgetting that something is impossible. Technical solutions only support this activity, what for example, can be shown by the artistic achievements of the period of his Jo Desing Gallery’ existence in Krakow26, where were presented glass, furniture, lamps – the provocative, surprising, astonishing works operating on the border between an art and applied art27, showing that the artist can always move (even without the extraordinary electronic possibilities) a part of elements living in his imagination to everyday reality and share them with the world.

Głowacki’s reflections show that there is no limits to human capabilities, there is no such a state of ideas’ exhausting, or also limitations to the areas of human activity, because – as the one noted in the work From empathy to cyberspace - “At the point of clash of the two curved spaces it comes to a meeting of all varieties of parallel worlds and crystallizing of all the emotions, because here we arrive to our gates of perception and understanding. At the edge, new realities are forming over and over again, they disappear and appear, they create and annihilate, they become it - the sum of all the changes” (OE, p 11). The feeling of vastness of human-machine potential evokes many open questions concerning the bionic skeletons, architectural organisms (OE, no page numbers), opportunities of activity of the Vitruvian man immersed in a multimedia reality, construction projects based on divine principles (OE, p 172), transferred to processing area of the new media.

Among many statements about art and life were also judgments about what is going to happen in the end of 2012. The artist-scientist-visionary facing the projection of the end does not treat catastrophic forecasts as a sentence; closing of one stage for him is tantamount to opening of the next area. All the prophecies and visions of the end of the world he sees as complex and multi-dimensional cultural phenomena. He notes a banality of commercial messages stating that popular culture feeds to society foolish movies, what shows that the end of the world is a bestseller product. At the same time he draws attention to the fact that many people live in an extraordinary tension because they feel the butterfly effect existence, they have a sense of liberation of processes that are difficult to understand, what contributes to the persistence of anxiety and uncertainty. In a context of these phenomena his artistic credo leads to the belief that there is no clear end, but there is always a beginning. In the article 2012 or the six planets’ dance he noted: “Regardless of whether we like it or not, we have to face the truth and accept the fact that because we live in a multi-cyclic environment,

26 Jo Desing, an authorial art. Galery of A. Głowacki existed in 1992-1996, located at Zaułek św. Tomasza.

27 Dokumentation of objects at: komunikacja wizualna.wsiz.pl/o-nas,zespol-naukowy,Andrzej-Glowacki.html – portfolio artysty, access 1.08.2012



our lives must be a subject to regular influence of this environment. [...] Date of December 21st, 2012 called by me <the six planets’ dance> is in [...] Mayan Calendar number 13 0000 ahan 3 kankun and nothing more. It is a date closing a cycle of 1872000 days that began in 8239 BC as the previous cycle. The current cycle is finishing exactly after the date of 21st of December of 2012”28. This statement clearly connects the end with the beginning and is far from a catastrophic anticipation.

Reflections on the end and the beginning are connected by the artist with the literature/book - placed in dimension of the following cells of evolution: orality, literacy and multimediaty29. Printing, paper and card carrier is associated with the wheel, steam machine, what reveals its conceptual sculpture titled Steam machine book machine30, which is a symbolic condensed recognition of humanity’ and media’ histories. Standing on sandy ground wheel of the steam engine, which puddles looks like books, shows crucial changes of cultural achievements, highlighting their indestructibility - resulting from the possibility of meaning’ transforming, getting a new meaning, with the ability to interact. The sculpture symbolizes difficulties of existence - related to overcoming resistance. An object, that resembles a watermill wheel, also retells about the impact of time on the media, about the hard times, run’ detentions, interference with the smooth action, it is a reminder not only of the triumphs of civilization – a print and a book, but also of the dramatic moments in the history of humanity, the destruction of cultural goods. The project can be embedded in the genre of art referring to the innovative ideas of avant-garde artists of the early XX century, offering the recipient, through ready-mades, a kind of intellectual game of meanings, for example, with the wheel with attached puddles to it. As once was with the urinal called the Fountain by Marcel Duchamp31, that name surrounds the object with a symbolic meaning. If Głowacki had not titled his work, we would have seen only a paddle wheel submerged in the sand. In a sense, The Machine ... as all the ready-mades, is the art of recycling taking part in discussions about the end and the beginning. Thanks to the activity of the creator subjects start a new life after completing the previous functional existence... The presented vision can be complemented by the work titled The machine for books32, which shows different fortunes of a paddle wheel located

28 A. Głowacki, 2012 czyli taniec sześciu planet, Bistro.edu.pl, read 1.VII.2012.

29 The important role of these cells was highlighted by M. Hopfinger, Literatura i nowe media po roku 1989, Warsaw 2010, p. 164.

30 Available at wikipedia – also at: A. Głowacki, Od empatii…, no page numbers.

31 This phenomenon is characterized by G. Pietruszewska-Kobiela, Preludium do ponowoczesności. Ready mades Marcela Duchampa i przedmiot Anatola Sterna, Prace Naukowe AJD w Częstochowie. Filologia Polska. Historia i Teoria Literatury, n. XI, ed. by. E. Hurnikowej i L. Rożek, Czestochowa 2009, p. 139-172.

32 The project including four approaches of paddle wheel is available at: andrzej.glowacki.pl/index.php?mm



within the wooden walls, buried in the grass, lying in the water and submerged in the water, moving and by this emphasizing the triumphant result of the struggle with various adversities.

Also, the books - Archetypture of Word or anti-tales, Soluble Fish in Insoluble Reality or incomplete me andrzej or paweł głowacki and scientific artistic work From empathy to cyberspace are a record of the author’s vision of the beginning and the end, enclosed in the verbal and visual form. Archetypture... and Soluble fish…, books of a remarkable form, realize the dream of existence of a living text emerging in front of the reader/recipient of the album. Creation/birth of the text is highlighted by the adoption of inter-genre fiction formula giving an impression that it is a result of an automatic writing completed with nonmimetic illustrations created by the writer and the page’ writings with rows of number suggesting the mysterious meaning, creating the impression of text generated by some electronic device, forming, in conjunction with the verbal text, a kind of inaccessible language-code.

Both unique positions have an ambiguous gen status resulting from the inability to classify texts which can be called hybrids, and the legend associated with the circumstances of their creation and the process of creating which characterizes the artist. Adopted by the artist solutions are effective opposition to aging and ossification of genre forms. The author tells about the Archetypture… as follows: „[...] I am a visual artist, a photographer, a graphic artist and a designer - maybe that’s why my thoughts were casually constructed as nearly abstract images in which sometimes one thought emerges from the other one by chance – as if it came from the other world. In everyday work I can be characterized by a collage way of thinking, which probably showed itself during the anti-tales writing. [...] I have the impression that these texts write themselves. As if, during the writing process, for the moment I completely forgot of myself, by a chance (being in a state of light circulation), catching the orbiting around <thoughtforms>”33. However, in The soluble fish... he wrote: „[...] the text was created [...] not lineally over during a dozen of years with large time intervals, with referring to the different situations [...] Soluble fish in insoluble reality was written [...] in two ways - in Polish and by a numerical code, which by default is addressed to future representatives of <artificial intelligence>, who use a digital language. This writing, with meaning being not available to a human, provides an opportunity to confront purely graphical feelings with those ones that arise in our words and meanings”34.

=171&nn=425&page=1&foto=1997, odczyt 15.VI. 2012.

33 A. Głowacki, Architektura przekazu…, p. 52-53.




Soluble fish... was created in the late 80th and early 90th, but the reader does not feel the time distance, the text and the image are perceived as innovative, unusual, surprising, breaking the traditional reading habits. Experimental element also marks the Archetypture..., defined as meditation on the borderline with fictional, popular science literature and fine arts; the annotation says: “This is a mythology of the future combining in itself the oldest cultures’ secret knowledge, mysticism, alchemy with the discoveries of modern mathematics, geometry, physics, astronomy, biology, philosophy, sociology, advertising, visual arts”35. However, the book From empathy to cyberspace places itself on the border of essays on art, scientific works, aesthetic treaties, academic books and albums. Noting the extraordinary form, professors-reviewers noted: “The professor Głowacki’s book is a clear and loud voice convincing the last unwilling and opposing once to the coming possibilities of tomorrow in a space design. This colorful album clearly shows how the colorful and unstoppable imagination of the creator can, through the use of new tools, inspire and educate young students of art, and consequently, who knows, maybe even change the world”, another reviewer pointed out that the chapters-essays are a kind of appeal formed by “the open, empathic creator” encouraging to leave the habits and stereotypes36.

The image change, which is appearing in the culture, leads Głowacki–scientist to broadening of the methodological boundaries, what results in the artistic and scientific discourse. Weakening of the rigor’ argument is one of the most important methodological demands formulated by researchers of imaging and multimedia objects phenomena, it is known that the hybrid beings are better described by the multiscience conceptual machinery. The methodological polyphony, appearing in From empathy to cyberspace, links Głowacki’s books to creation of a specific dimension of communication requiring the openness and willingness of a recipient to meet with the visionary, polyphonic statement characterized by individual emotions. The work dealing with the specifics of “project reality” and “visual communication” in a public space contains many cultural digressions and educational methodological postulates revealing that the author draws attention to the climax occurring in the life of a modern man, which is the emergence of a new reality: “It is really important that new tools create a new vision of architecture – a cyber-architecture. New spaces and technical capabilities to its implementation are emerging. We think of the trans-humanistic “home” and (as a generation of Odysseus’ children) we become the wanderers of the sky – of the new space...”(OE, p. 49) A trans-humanistic

35 Based on information taken from the webpage houseofalbums.pl – read on 1.VII.2012.

36 The first review is made by prof. D. Grzybowicza, the second one is wrotten by prof. J. Nunckowski, stated based on fragments of reviews placed on the bookcover.



house is a modern object, which - using the categories proposed by Anna Legeżyńską37 – can be defined as “counterattack space”, human shield in the spleen of twilight time.

It should be noted that Głowacki’s books are not in wide circulation, they live in the circle of environmental reception, published in small, authorial issues, the graphical part is done by Kakazone – the impossible things and visual arts studio, their distribution is held by the Krakow bookshop House of albums - The World in albums. Limited/controlled availability of these items is comparable to the way of functioning of literary works for initiated ones, experimental enthusiasts, and connoisseurs of artbooks. Specific niche way of publication also stems from the fact that these are items of intellectual challenge, which are not giving a “classic reading pleasure” resulting, for example, from a simple plot, because traditional solutions are replaced with variability38.

Soluble fish... - as a text and an image – has left paper cards, and entered a space of the virtual cave, thereby gaining a new life, it met - which is the author’s intention - not literature consumers but “literature participants” - as the people in contact with Głowacki’s book objects are titled by him - this way works, that combine a form in a specific way with a content, are defined, “in the book items the typographic and graphics layer play the role of literature”39. The artist’ use of the term “literature participant” comes from the acquisition/transfer of the term from the area of new media. The procedure indicates that Głowacki feels the need of connecting the reception with participation, activity, which effects is co-creation. His media experiment demands a close, almost physical contact with the work, which is changing and transforming under the influence of customers/viewers/contributors activity. The initiator of the experience points out that he walks a defined tract, but at the same time he introduces new, pioneering solutions. The functioning of the books in different areas and in different forms shows that their author assumed that they will have a numerously media nature, what means that, in their own way, they will be easy converted works with a nature that allows them to operate in areas of various relays. This value - coming from the polyphonic construction - emphasizes their openness, dynamism and mobility. They are equipped with features that allow them to be seen as a metaphorical approach to modern civilization, a symbol of

37 A Legeżyńska, Dom i poetycka bezdomność w liryce współczesnej, Warsaw 1996.

38 Literature of this kind requires a high reading competence, openness and willingness to make intellectual effort. The specificity of receipt of such texts is characterized during the discussions initiated by the “Dekada Literacka” devoted to the literature 2.0.: Literatura a nowe media. Rozmowa redakcyjna z udziałem Anny Łebkowskiej, Krzysztofa Uniłowskiego, Krystyny Wilkoszewskiej, prowadziła Anna Pachłódka, „Dekada Literacka” 2010, is. 1/2, p. 7-23.

39 A. Głowacki, Architektura przekazu…, p. 47.



post-modern culture producing a number of hybrid entities40, collage-like ones, close to the convention of a silva. Freedom of circulation of the books easily operating in the different media should be seen as an extension of the idea of a living, constituting, newborn text. This eases of movement, trans-mediation and the ability to interact with a human, a viewer-participant, is the result of the exhibiting of the visual qualities and loose, fractal composition41.

An iconicity of Archetypture... and Soluble fish... is built not only with a traditional illustration, but also with verbal record. The author attaches great importance to the visual record and notes: “[...] a visual record is not just an esthetic addition, but it becomes a fundamental part of literature”42; „[…] Pictures are not only decorative growths, but a truly functional component of literary”43.

Głowacki’s texts (put into the area of the cave) become a part of the virtual world written into the screens strategies, a motion of its creating part makes us aware that the products of the new media are not a fixed for eternity structure, but something “[...] that exists in many different from it versions, the number of which can be theoretically infinite. [...] New media are variable. With regard to new media the other terms are often used - such as liquidity and volatility. [...] The various components are captured electronically rather than by a rigid medium, they retain their individual identity and can be connected under the program control, creating countless sequences”44. This way, thanks to the new environment, Soluble fish... which is a paper kind of printing theater, transforms into a media spectacle.

According to Głowacki – a writer and an illustrator – a verbal and an image message are inextricably united, analyzing the structure of literary communication functioning in times of new media popularity, the artist appealed to the magical qualities of writing, to the beginnings of typographic experiments, claimed: “The reality is inherently visual. Wherever you look, there will always be something for our eyes. Sometimes the eye itself is not enough, so the humanity creates complex machines enabling perceiving infinitely small, molecular worlds as well as distant realities far for millions of light years, [...] Writing subjected to the laws of art order and aesthetic of golden ratio falls in the category of beauty, and an outlook of the text itself significantly affects the perception and

40 The intencification of these phenomena is noted by P. Marecki, Liternet, [in:] Literatura i Intrnet, ed. by. P. Marecki, Krakow 2002, p. 5.

41 Tendencies of creation and popularization od this type are presented in the article: G. Pietruszewska-Kobiela, Literatura ery słowa monitorowanego. Wybrane zjawiska i zagadnienia, [in:] Neofilologie na przełomie tysiącleci. Najnowsze tendencje w literaturze, językoznawstwie, przekładzie i glottodydaktyce, ed. by P. Sznurkowski, E. Pawlikowskiej-Asendrych, B. Rusek, Czestochowa 2012, p. 184-201.

42 A. Głowacki, Architektura przekazu literackiego…, p. 47.


44 By these words L. Manovich describes features of media objects, L. Manovich, op.cit., p. 102-103.



understanding of its meaning. On this basis, it can be concluded that a written text’ recipient is also a double visual message’ recipient. Both form and content are than visual. [...] Content of a text carries a submersible visual message, referring to a world image contained in a language and, indirectly, to some visual reality - concrete or abstract one which the text describes”45. Peculiar symbiosis of writing and image makes a consistent project that is presented not only in books but also in the “dePressja” journal46, searching , in both in graphic and verbal sphere, for the theme of the tower of Babel. On its pages you can also meet vertical writings of “a matrix kind” which suggest a dynamic variability of communication. World images and thought forms are a sign of participation in the great astral travel/adventure, which allows to look at the world without a ballast of realistic conventions and to enter the reality beyond the borders of human limitations.

Głowacki creates situations in which a text and a form of its writing are just as important. With functions of the virtual cave texts begin to create/build a new kind of presented world; the recipient experiences an interactive contact with the work, he observes life of a text and an image, and at the same time he is also the potential for activating the process47. Randomness of reading, occurring in this situation, is combined with the phenomenon of the trajectory of reading, new meanings are still appearing depending on the “strength of discover of work” and the activity of the subject getting in touch with it, and it’s willingness to co-create meanings48.

An assumption of artistic processing of his books the author presents as follows: “The purpose of research on the Archetypture of word is creation of visual manipulation tools, used to hierarchize content in a relation to the individual needs of the text user. Next we define the impact of these tools for controlling the dynamic visual message on understanding and memorizing mechanisms”49. However, in the experiments on Soluble fish... he wrote: “[...] It is actually a willingness to allow a recipient to search for analogies between distant fragments of text that becomes a research cause of departure from the traditional form of the book and putting the contents in a three-dimensional

45 A. Głowacki, Architektura przekazu…, p. 141-142.

46 It is a newspaper of Jest to czasopismo of the Department of Computer Graphics Advertising and New Media at UITM in Rzeszow, chosen issues and pages are available at: andrzej.glowacki.pl/index.php?mm=171&nn=355&page, dostęp 19.VI. 2012.

47 On popularization of that kind of solutions is written by U. Pawlicka, O rozszczepianiu umysłu. Nie tylko o U-man i masa Romana Bramboszcza: http://www.perfokarta.net/ - tab Teoria, dostęp 27.II.2011.

48 This kind of literaturę is characterized by A. Janus-Sitarz, Trajektorie czytania. O losowej naturze procesu lektury, [in:] Efekt motyla 2. Humaniści wobec metaforyki teorii chaosu. Studia, ed. by D. Heck, K. Bakuły, Wroclaw 2012, p. 201-202.

49 A. Głowacki, Architektura przekazu…, p. 53.

http://www.perfokarta.net/



space controlled by an interface of body - gesture and movement. The virtual environment enables the creation of specific transitions between distant but interconnected pieces of a text that become naturally available, such as turning pages of a traditional book”50. Taken actions oppose themselves, in a sense, to the phenomenon of the end of the Gutenberg Galaxy, because the books of Głowacki (who anticipates in his theoretical statements a post-computer reality shape) live in printed form and also can easily get into the area of the Turing Galaxy. Because of that they become a realization of the idea of a book becoming a living organism; in this phenomenon also an echo of Ong reflection can be noticed stating that a text is often similar to a human body51 (a plastic one and being written down) - as the space in which the text is included. May the introduction of a text to the dimension of the cave be tantamount to putting it in the place so special, differentiated, almost sacred? I think this question can be answered positively, what is shown by interpretations of a somehow turned off, closed space proposed by various sources; the answer may be positive also because the virtual cave resembles in some way a library/reading room/temple or may be a simulacrum’, mythical paradise? We can certainly feel a difference of this place in comparison with the outside world, as well as we can feel a magic of a library’ atmosphere52. But... there is also a similarity to that outside world, which reveals in the power of screen... this makes us realize that it may be at the same time a sacralization and a partial desacralization.

The departure from a traditional book, which contains unconventional texts, shows that the writer and the multimedia artist does not close in a decisive manner the times of a paper book, he is a supporter of their translatability into other media language, thus signaling that the new media are born based on the old ones. There is this clearly underlined idea of recycling combined with cultivation of cultural memory53, which becomes the guarantor of value existence in an ever-changing reality, in - as the artist determines it – “the reality of the game”. He characterized it as follows: “A new world created in the era of the computer will open a new space for a cyber’ culture, the space of new fun, relaxation and stress. [...] By creating a new reality and participating in it the players go through the following stages of <a new initiation >, experiencing <a

50 A. Głowacki, Architektura przekazu, p. 54.

51 W.J. Ong, Oralność i piśmienność. Słowo poddane technologii, transl. And introduction by J. Japola, Lublin 1992, p. 40.

52 On specifity of librery space at H. Kubicka, To miejsce jest tajemnicą, miejscem świętym. Sakralna symbolika literackich bibliotek, [in:] Miejsca święte w literaturze, ed. by Z. Chojnowski, A. Rzymska-Tarnowska, Olsztyn 2009, p. 405-406.

53 More on that artistic strategy at: G. Pietruszewska-Kobiela, Loty nasion. Litery, słowa i teksty bez uwięzi. Energia życia w projektach Ewy Partum, Marcina Dymitera i Ludomira Franczaka, [in:] Efekt motyla 2…, p. 112-114.



power of new myth> in the Campbell’ understanding. In each player there is an archetype of <hero’s comeback> (OE, p 99) being a base of the mythical story structure. Głowacki’s books highlight the moment of experience borders, which shape comes from the nature of the trans-personalization assumptions, from the unveiling of the super-consciousness, from a particularly sensitive reception of time and space. Experience/transpersonal states allow crossing the limits of “I” and inspire communication with Anima Mundi. As it was once noted by Marika Wata in the draft included in Soluble fish..., character attributes are: imagination, consciousness and spontaneity; thanks to them the one can find himself in the “epicenter of the border experience” so that “after crossing the solubility threshold a character looks at his actions from two perspectives: from the action’s inside - I started playing and from outside - and it started being played. This way of perceiving the reality brings to mind works of the Cubists who tried to observe the reality from the perspective of a being derived from a fourth spatial dimension. Such a being, when looking at the face of a man, would see it from all angles at once. This four-dimensional perspective in Soluble fish in insoluble reality’ text is extended to an unlimited numerous-perspective. The sequence of image-situations that fill the text appears as a dynamic map of associations, a spatial collage”54, through which we enter the world of the artist-visionary’ imagination.

There is no end of the world without the end of books/literature. The book which is thanks to the Głowacki’s concepts included in the circulation – as if in the cycle of nature - becomes, in a sense, a building block of the world. Archetypture... author’ artistic projects shows that new media, the objects created by it, refresh old cultural codes, newly emerging standards of creation, active, motion’ reading-looking; it requires new research tools, so the book we meet in the virtual cave forces to bring a state of uncertainty to a researcher who refers to categories such as presented world, composition, narrator, author, recipient, structure, aesthetic layer... The creator realizes that providing the aesthetic and axiological experience of a medianotropus who lived in the times of transformation of a traditional book, art and architecture, becomes not only an artistic challenge but also a methodological one55. As Luc Pauwels stated, the visual culture’ study and communication through it requires looking beyond the walls of the science and art disciplines, openness for many different areas such as semiotics, linguistics, philosophy of science, psychology, anthropology, physics...56. An overview of specific phenomena shows a need of combining 54 M. Wata, Między mitem a rytuałem, [in:] A. Głowacki, Rozpuszczalna ryba…, no page numbers.

55 The complexity of these phenomena, in the context of bookform evolution, is noted A. Dróżdż, Od Liber mundi do hipertekstu. Książka w świecie utopii, Warsaw 2009, p. 187.

56 L. Pauwels, Zwrot wizualny w badaniach i komunikacji wiedzy. Kluczowe problemy rozwijania kompetencji wizualnej w naukach społecznych, [in:] Badania wizualne w działaniu. Antologia tekstów, ed. by



different life and scientific experiences, research’ methodologies showing that in some cases distinct boundaries between different disciplines and areas of study end and it comes to a blurring of the boundaries between science and art. The end of the old boundaries becomes a sign of the beginning of the open space of creative activity that combines science, art, literature, and advertising.

“I started writing but paper absorbed me” - these words, taken as the title of a sketch – are repeated in Soluble fish... many times and signalize that the character is immersed in a soluble reality, “[...] enters a mystical time and mystical space - enters the world of the Supernatural Being. It is as if he has learned to breathe in the waters of the transcendence becoming a part of the soluble, invisible world” (RR, no p.n.) by which he gets absorbed, in which he creates the phenomena of numerous branching inter-textual references.

Głowacki does not foresee the end of the world, he does not expect a self-destruction of the modern civilization, he opens to a postmodern man virtual dimensions and culture spaces based on the proper functioning interfaces of man/machine endowed with a power of creation. Genesis echoes often resound in his prose, multi-dimensional world has no end, it is in the state of constitution and scattering, it is formed by elements created by the recycling culture which uses various elements of the intellectual mosaic. A magma of subconscious of a numerous-media artist emerges from the intellectual collage: “between the heaven and the earth they found the original water in order to cling up they held the ritual of the medium so their world could keep developing from it its center of imagination and its deep because without imagination it was cut off from its own soul, drifting lost in the basement [...] at the beginning was word-image that became a multi-level narrative mysteries’ room” (AS, no p.n.). The element of the motion - of thought, imagination - makes a man to be seen as a medium communicating with the whole world and the universe, the present and the cultural past, this chain make an effective resistance to the visions of the ultimate end. Głowacki’s projects show that, although his statements are of a numerously media kind, the artist does not finish the history of a “paper book”; the form considered to be the past exists next to its “cave” mutations. The relationship between the old and the new media shows that in both areas it is possible to extend the creation of semiotic of media, in both areas it is possible to return to the physicality of a text which carries additional meanings. The outlined concept of a text’ existence shows that the Archetypture...’ author is in the stream of culture in which “the power belongs to amorfia and finiteness has no place”57. Endless duration of texts comes from the capability of numerously

M. Frąckowiaka, K. Olechnicki, transl.team, Warsawa 2011, p. 33.

57 See remarks of P. Czapliński, P. Śliwiński, Literatura polska 1976-1998. Przewodnik po prozie i poezji, Krakow 2002, p. 337.



semantic existence, their sense is built by the space in which they exist, their ground and the way they make contacts/agreements with receivers-participants, their life are all the result of activation of medium’ features through which they are transferred.

The artist manifests book’s existence in the age of increasing feelings of its breakdown, he refers to its duality showing that each book is both alive and dead, finished in its duration and never-ending in its story, and the move of its paper version to the virtual dimension of the cave emphasizes this duality of nature. Dualism of a book comes, as was noted by Małgorzata Góralska, from combination of the material and spiritual elements, what makes it, on the one hand, a dead subject, but at the same time exudes with vital potency capable of moving the human58. An attitude to the traditional books and the way of connecting \ the old and the new media by the creator’ different projects proves that avoiding the mournful melancholy state (a significant for the culture anticipating coming of its end) is the achievable goal for a modern art. Archetypture of word author’ attitude can be determined by the observations of Anna Zeidler-Janiszewska who spoke of the aesthetic phenomena in sphere of postmodernity as an “intellectual flaneurism” reflecting a clash of different partial philosophical-aesthetic discourses embedded in the frames of the socio-regulatory concept of culture59.

Głowacki’s works often surprise those who are new to his concepts, what is accompanied by the need to leave the dimension of the ordinary. Category of surprise has two colors - negative (then the world is broken into pieces, because it is governed by a destruction) and positive - happy, when a man finds a “blues of opportunities” and when the harbingers of the end become a declaration of the beginning60; in fact this aspect is very clear in analyzed concepts. An artistic strategy is based on the free search of the treasury of myths - such as logos, axiology..., and also on combining them with dimensions of social communication space, which - as noted by Andrzej Dróżdż - build communication’ utopia breaking a consistency that occurs among elements of the old system61 for the sake of cultural interface - a metaphor of reality and a specific merger of HIC (Human Computer Interface), finishing the time of the traditional understanding of the reality for the sake of virtuality, which, as noted by Jean Baudrillard, becomes more real than a Physical reality62, similarly to the 58 See reflections of M. Góralska, Książki, nowe media i ich czasoprzestrzenie, Warsaaw 2009, p. 108.

59 A. Zeidler-Janiszewska, Między melancholią i żałobą. Estetyka wobec przemian w kulturze współczesnej, Warsaw1996, p. 15.

60 See Trudna ponowoczesność. Rozmowy z Zygmuntem Baumanem, p. I, ed. by A. Zeidler-Janiszewska, Poznan 1995, p. 8.

61 A, Dróżdż, Od liber mundi…, p. 120

62 J Baudrillard, Słowa klucze, przekł. S. Królak, Warsaw 2008, p. 37-39.



astral dimensions which appear to be more real than the physical ones. Magic and myth of creating words and images, a vision of a human peacefully linked to a machine are concepts that effectively dispute with catastrophic visions of the end. According to this argument cited on the beginning of this article we should realize that techno-art confront a modern man with the big questions – it tells him to think about whether or not the ruled by modern technology world can become a civilization’ heaven, is this dream only an utopian projection, is it the beginning of a happy infinite existence or a barren land? Głowacki’s artistic visions show culturally rich spaces, the multifaceted ones - affecting the imagination, thus they inspire by clever hope...

„I STARTED WRITING BUT PAPER ABSORBED ME”. THE VISION OF ENDLESS DURATION IN MULTIMEDIA...

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