Solo show at Propaganda gallery, Warsaw PL / March 16th - May 19th, 2019As part of the exhibition "How to travel", the duo of artists - Ewa Doroszenko and Jacek Doroszenko - continues their creative path, exploring the interdependence of the visual and audio spheres. The idea of the exhibition refers to the thesis put forward by the philosopher Alfred Korzybski: "The map is not the territory" and the concept of "simulacrum" proposed by Jean Baudrillard. Based on observations concerning the relationship between the contemporary traveler and the surrounding landscape, which is more often based on compulsive photography of the landscape than on its direct experience, the artists question the trust in virtually constructed images. The exhibition becomes a subjective study of the ways in which culture changes our longings for idyllic natural landscapes.Fascinated by modern information technologies and their incredible potential to shape lifestyles, based on images from popular computer games and tourist guides, the artists explore the formal possibilities of digital blurs, distortions, and imperfections. The video titled "Imagine yourself on an island in the middle of the ocean", inspired by virtual landscapes, using naive clichés from popular online meditations with a guide, presents one of the ways in which we try to achieve a state of internal balance in the era of information overload. Similar tendencies are also used in the sound installation titled "AMSR machine", which directly refers to the phenomenon of the spontaneous response of sensory meridians to specific stimuli. Both works concern different processes of entering a state of relaxation through simulation.The preparation of the exhibition was accompanied by a reflection on the function of contemporary photography, which occupies a special place in building illusory visions of the landscape. As Susan Sontag wrote: "The powers of photography have in effect de-Platonized our understanding of reality, making it less and less plausible to reflect upon our experience according to the distinction between images and things, between copies and originals". Contemporary virtual reality changes and influences perceptions of what a "natural landscape" is. If you take a closer look at this process, you will find that our image of reality is mostly based on digital information, adopted in the form of a stream.Cast: Ewa Doroszenko, Jacek Doroszenko
