The work presented at the exhibition is a three-channel video installation, the result of interdisciplinary research conducted by Amy Muhoro and Weronika Wysocka during the period of social distancing in the summer of 2020. For several weeks during the pandemic, the artists locked themselves at home to comb through social media accounts, internet forums, and obscure corners of the internet in order to construct a map of the “oppression of algorithms” and social media manipulation. Their research shows a gradual polarization of views and the collapse of cyber security – from 2013, when corporations first used harvested data to influence election results, to the disruption of internet service in Belarus in the wake of the rigged presidential elections in August 2020. The work reflects on the process of artistic investigation and depicts the cause and effect chain of data extraction by private companies experimenting with data collection, especially in the most vulnerable societies. This is complemented by the poetic and literary layer of the video, echoing the state of danger and paranoia experienced by a generation of young activists who, as the artists say, “from time to time in the struggle for their rights lose their sanity and blame themselves for the lack of adequate defense systems and knowledge, although only highly specialized experts have access to them.”

Cinematography: Filip Skrońc
Sound: Zoi Mikhailova
Color Correction: Hesham Hammad 
Graphic Design: Kaja Kusztra Actress: Eliza Chojnacka

Music:
PIANO FANTASIA
Song for Denise
(Mike Serbee & Tidee)
CRC MUSIQUE / SACEM

Sound recorded in Wieloślad Studio 

Produced with support from Sharp

Amy Muhoro

 

(b. 1996) – Kenyan multidisciplinary artist. Her practice is focused on how art and history intersect, and their role in human life.

Weronika Wysocka

 

(b. 1994) – artist. Her works discuss different aspects of human imprints, such as technology and its impact on people and nature. She often uses text inspired by instant messaging as a narrative mirroring global moods. Wysocka is the initiator of the artistic residency for young artists Turnus Słupsk, and the founder and curator of the end-less program. Since 2019 she has conducted the NARRATION STRATEGIES workshop at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw. Curator of the online exhibition Scrolling the System for Zachęta – National Art Gallery. A graduate of Mirosław Bałka’s Studio of Spatial Activities at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw, and participant of exchange programs at UdK Berlin and Bezalel Academy of Arts and Design Jerusalem. In 2020 she launched the F is for Fact program at the Sanberg Institute. She has participated in numerous group exhibitions in Poland and abroad, and is the recipient of several arts scholarships.