Jarek Lustych is Polish visual artist (b.1961). He received his MFA degree from Warsaw Academy of Fine Arts; and since then he has been working as a freelance artist. Initially, the main area of his artistic focus was relief printing. Exploring its possibilities and limitations, he has created a series of works that have been shown in Poland and abroad and also in competition presentations. His solo exhibition showed various stages of these experiences – in the changing technical solutions, formats, and in the methods of imaging. After his fifteen-year career in the confined space of printmaking following his basic training, Lustych decided it was time for some change and enriched his practice with an extra dimension in an attempt to redefine the perception area of art. Since then, he has participated in several international site-specific symposiums and artist-in-residency programmes making sculptures, installations and organizing street actions / interventions. Twice he received the Polish ministerial scholarships, but the most creative so far were his stays in VillaWaldberta AiR (Germany) & A4 AiR – Luxlakes A4 Art Museum, Chengdu, China.
Website and Links: http://latentvoice.pl/
Proposal:
One of so far undiscovered forms of non-human art is the voice of the river. Reaching it requires penetrating the mentally impenetrable surface of flowing water. Since 2016, I have been extracting and recording the voice of rivers and the visual effect of their energy. In this case, rivers are treated as the subject (author) of creative action (http://latentvoice.pl/). The vibrations of the strings placed in the river current can also be translated into visual effects - into images created by flowing water that moves the pens and organizes patterns of pigment particles.
The recordings collected so far seem to indicate the regional nature of the sounds of individual rivers. For now, my research resource does not allow for further development of this hypothesis. In addition, it would be interesting to be able to confront the sounds of regional rivers with the specific audiosphere of specific places through which they flow, including the sound of speech, and as a result - the creation of a multidimensional space enabling simultaneous listening / experiencing the vibrations of the natural and human environment.
My artistic activity in recent years and plans related to its continuation constitute a variant of bio art. The transformation of actors into authors irreversibly changes the perspective of the spectacle participant, which is the terrestrial environment. In order to understand the operation of society, and hence to influence it, we should perceive all its members as real and cooperative wholes composed of both humans and non-humans.
The language and form of the intended work must be a function of the gradually discovered non-human creativity. It is difficult to define in advance the method (s) of research and activities, let alone predict all possible results, because so far it is impossible to recall any patterns or analogies from the field of art; this is a disadvantage but also an advantage of experimental designs. My practice shows that each of the experiences brings the concept of the next - as its continuation or opposition - and gives direction to the drifting imagination. It can only be assumed that - due to the consideration of various aspects of nature's subjectivity and the various effects of the planned research - disciplinarity should be suspended here. Apart from spatial installations, video art, sound art and drawing, I see the possibility of constructing physical / direct interfaces connecting people with non-people.
This gained experience allows me to design the extension of the field of research to other beings and their creative potential. Plants and fungi in which fluids flow - just like in rivers - seem promising. The creative energy of precipitation or other atmospheric phenomena also seems worth examining. Nor do I exclude allowing other non-human participants in posthuman society to speak.
I want to elicit sounds that represent the life processes taking place in mushrooms and/or plants. The dynamics of fungal life, unlike plants, is much faster and thus differences in sound variability are more noticeable to the human ear. The confrontation of the voices of the life of fungi and/or plants with sounds produced by a similar method from a human/author, making people aware of the community of fate/life, may evoke empathy to all beings. Here I see a gap that allows us to cross the rigid boundaries of human Reality and see the Real of earthly beings.
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