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+48 608 756 488 w w w. d o b i s z e w s k i . b o o . p l [email protected]

NO_IMAGE [interactive installation] 2009/10

In the NO IMAGE installation the viewer stands in front of the digital representation of his/her figure. The image from the camera is transposed to single sign - the words no image, which are the components of the presentation. The sign indicating the meaning is at the same time the sign contradicting that meaning.

installation view, One dog, Galeria Miejska bwa, Bydgoszcz / 2010

TEMPORARY INTERNET FILES_video version [installation / digital frames / TEMP pictures] 2009

Surfing around the World Wide Web, we unknowingly gather images which document that journey. They are stored in an album of our virtual travels - to the Temporary Internet Files folder. Photographs, graphics, animations seem to be postcards, because weíre not their authors, we just unknowingly collect them. Just like we donít know the person who made that postcard, weíre unable to determine whether a given situation took place in reality or it is a creation of a fictitious world. During the virtual travels we donít search in the images we watch for the signs of the bygone, we just find meanings and symbols - time and place go into oblivion.

installation view, One dog, Galeria Miejska bwa, Bydgoszcz / 2010

installation view, One dog, Vilnius / 2009

installation view, One dog, Galeria Miejska bwa, Bydgoszcz / 2010

movemental [pigmentprint on photopaper] 2009

...The prevailing idea in the artist’s search seems to be the return to the rudiments, basic components which later form more complicated, multilayer meanings. All the pre-intellectual remarks which we make by the way and not think about them or disregard them in our selective perception of the world are particularly intriguing. As children we learn the world, our mind learns to perceive objects and transfer their actual view into knowledge about them. Some time passes before a child becomes empirically convinced that even when it cannot see an object it does not stop existing. If a teddy bear disappears behind the closet it does not mean it is not out there. As adults we know that the teddy bear is behind the closet (because it fell in there) and it is there even though we cannot see it or can only see its fragment. In Movemental (2009) objects in photographed rooms are dislocated, the space is blown, fragmented and it requires some effort to rearrange the image and put it back in one. It is a bit like a children’s educational toy where the right block needs to be placed in the right opening of the right shape. Imagined movements which we make in our minds reflect our knowledge of the world and result from our experience in perceiving images. The level of dislocation of objects in a photograph can vary, and still it becomes clear that gradually, with practice we gain great ability in rearranging images in our heads. Thus a photograph as a complete image will exist only in our minds, photographic reality will turn out to be virtual... Sabina Czajkowska from the ‘Against Seeing’ exhibition catalogue

Against Seeing, Foto-Medium-Art Gallery / 2009

hidden trips [photographic films, exposed and undeveloped / sound] 2006-2009

...In ‘Hidden trips’ (2006/2009) he only displays tapes with exposed holiday negatives which had been collecting since 2001. We do not know what he photographed, what he found interesting in the places he visited. Images recorded on print paper potentially exist, it seems they can be displayed. However they are not to be seen. We can only listen to the sounds he recorded during his trips. Basing on them we have to create our own image of locations, events, views and people. In our memories different sensual stimuli are mixed creating a general impression. Mechanisms which cause some stimuli to evoke non-specific reactions are interesting. For instance the smell of cake will bring back memories of home or grandma’s hands who used to make it, or even its taste. We take photographs to preserve memories, to bring memories back with their help. The artist in a way undermines this process, reverses it, makes it difficult presenting the sound. Too often today do we rely on photographic records of reality, we are quite lazy when it comes to training the memory. How often do we record important events, exotic travels, by storing dozens of photographs – and now at the digital age even thousands – until there are too many to look at them or irritate friends with. Or we even never look at them again. The knowledge of our memories being stored spoils us. It is a very comfortable situation which seems to release us from the duty to remember.... Sabina Czajkowska from the ‘Against Seeing’ exhibition catalogue hidden_trips 2006-2008 [zurich, boston, paris, st.michel, skoki, lubomierz]

Against Seeing, Foto-Medium-Art Gallery, Kraków / 2009

hidden_trips / cząstkowo_2008

hidden_trips / gdańsk_2008

hidden_trips / tallin_2008

hidden_trips / kraków_2009

hidden_trips / vilnius_2008

timing [video] 2008 ...Even if the artist provides us with an image, the fact that we can see it is often not satisfying, does not answer emerging questions. The questions concerning what is happening, who the people caught by the camera are, from where and where to they are going. They appear when watching short films from the Timing (2008/2009) cycle. In fact it seems as if nothing import ant is happening, the camera incidentally registers a fragment of the beach and the sea or a hardly interesting fragment of the park. The space is divided in half by the line of the horizon. Suddenly there appears a figure with instantaneously attributed progress bar visible on the screen, measuring the figure’s visibility. Some go from the right to left edge of the screen at a very slow rate; others, for instance cyclist, appear on the screen for quite a short while. A sea gull flies across the screen in no time at all. It is an amusing effect, quite grotesque, as it seems absurd to combine a computer detail with saved images of people who are not doing anything significant. The progress bar is a visual signalling device reflecting the progress of work performed by a machine. In fact, we do not know what is actually happening, what activities have been performed and what remains to be done. We often anxiously observe such progress bars on our screens rushing it “go on!”; unfortunately we are unable to speed the process up. We have no influence on the figures which appear in Tomek’s work. Or perhaps we would like to speed up the action a bit when men in the boat obviously cannot fight the waves and pass the short distance in a lazy and chaotic manner? Timing, measuring of time, is associated with racing or running, and here we have to be patient. Here time is measured arbitrarily, within the display frame, cold, by a machine. It is also futile to await any sort of closure or sudden turn of events. Narration is accidental (the sea gull flying by makes the monotonous image far more interesting), neither the place where images were shot, nor who appears on the screen seems to matter, thus the films gain universal qualities. And even though the endless sea, horizon or man’s loneliness can bring to mind some cultural references, or “literature”, lean towards some metaphor, eventually it is the progress bar that makes the image grotesque. In English “timing” can mean synchronized time, fitting in a situation. Doing something at the right moment. Just right, though by accident. Coincidence, unpredictability, fragmentariness and qualities of mini-history without beginning nor end shown by the films. The artist amusingly draws our attention to what technology hides from us, at the same time indicating the limitations of a stable picture frame. We will not see nor learn about anything more than what we see. The image is exactly what it is. An integral being presented to us which we have to make close to us on our own. Even though Tomek seems to be doing everything to blur our perception or even discourage us from looking..... Sabina Czajkowska from the ‘Against Seeing’ exhibition catalogue

memorabilia [interactive installation / flashboxes / photography / movement sensors] 2005/8

Pierwszy stopień introspekcji zasugerowany jest juz na poziomie tytułu pracy. Tytuł ten jest dość przewrotny – terminem “memorabilia” posługujemy się dla określenia rzeczy nam bliskich, wartościowych, które z tylko nam wiadomych przyczyn, często zresztą niewyrażalnych, uważamy za godne zachowania w pamięci. Obrazy, z którymi stykamy sie w pracy Tomasza Dobiszewskiego, mają charakter właściwie dokładnie odwrotny. Wchodzący w przestrzeń prezentacji widz zostaje niespodziewanie zaatakowany serią obrazów, które nie pochodzą z jego świata, są za to odbiciem, metaforycznym przebłyskiem pamięci autora, który brutalnie wkracza w nasz umysł swoja przeszłością. Co więcej, nie są to obrazy które chciałby on zachować w pamięci, ale raczej obrazy które nie dają się zapomnieć. Różnica jest ogromna. Forma przedstawienia, która dominuje w tym wypadku nad treścią, została tak wypracowana, aby stworzyć fotograficzną metaforę dla poszczególnych pokładów ludzkiej pamięci; czujniki ruchu odzwierciedlają mechanizm przypadkowo uruchomionych synaps - automatyzm procesów pamięciowych jako niezbadany fenomen. Nie wiadomo kiedy, nie wiadomo skąd, nagle pojawia sie sygnał, który otwiera kod dostępu do przypadkowo zapisanego na matrycy mózgu obrazu. Migawka zwalnia się na chwile, flash wydobywa biel z czerni i w krótkiej sekundzie obraz zostaje przywrócony w formie powidoku. I własnie to “po” jest dla tej pracy kluczowe. Czynnik czasu, czasu wewnętrznego, czasu niezależnego, czasu który jest prywatnym czasem naszego mózgu, czasu, którego ośrodek znajduje się prawdopodobnie w bliskim sąsiedztwie ośrodka samoświadomości, tego ośrodka, który chociaż najbliższy, najtrudniejszy jest do poznania, ten czynnik znalazł tutaj swoje fizyczne, a jednak wciąż poetyckie odzwierciedlenie. Dorota Walentynowicz

Memorabilia, installation view, Mazovian Centre of Contemporary Art ELEKTROWNIA, Radom / 2008

Memorabilia, installation view, CSW Inner Spaces, Poznań / 2005

Memorabilia, installation view, CSW Inner Spaces, Poznań / 2005

washing off [pinhole photography / polaroid] 2007 (FRAGMENT)

memory [photo paper / undeveloped and unfixed material] 2007/9 (FRAGMENT)

Zaklęta w papier fotografia jest oczywistym przedłużeniem pamięci. Zwalnia od pamiętania, a czasem w zupełności ową pamięć zastępuje. Jest kluczem do świata wspomnień, do miejsc i wrażeń zmysłowych, jakie nam towarzyszyły i przypisane zostały za pomocą światła do konkretnego czasu, czasu nieuchronnie minionego. Światło, determinant, który powołał fotografie do istnienia, może stać, i w tym wypadku staje się zarazem narzędziem destrukcji. Postacie widoczne na fotografiach pozbawione zostały procesu utrwalenia, można by rzec, iż żyją własnym życiem. Będą jeszcze chwile pozowały aż zupełnie znikną i pozostawią po sobie wrażenie przemijającego jak pamięć powidoku.

maybe [video] 2005

one minute [video] 2006

re-medium [cameras built out of a pill packs / leaflet / pinhole photography on silver print] 2002-2005

Tomasz Dobiszewski in his work “Re-medium” creates a camera out of a pill pack. The space in which the image appears is where the pill lay just a moment ago. The image might be then a vision after the pill has been taken, or this vision might be the consequence of taking the image. The author, for whom, pinhole photography has always been an uncovering medium, is trying to convince us, by putting instructions next to the photographs of how to use them in the shape of an informative brochure added to the medicine, that during “visual pauperisation” the images will still appear, even if only as placebo. Marek Noniewicz

Polygonum, Galeria Miejska bwa, Bydgoszcz / 2007

Object Hunting - Biennale of Photography, Galeria Miejska Arsenał, Poznań / 2005

palingenesis [pinhole photography / silver print] 2004 (FRAGMENT)

palingenesis - (Biology) the repetition by a single organism of various stages in the evolution of its species during embryonic development; In the film “Der Himmel uber Berlin” by Wim Wenders we hear a repetitive sentence: “Als das Kind Kind war…” – when the child was a child the time of questions began: “why am I me and not you”, “when does the time begin” and “when does the space end”; children in the streets keep their heads turned up to the sky capable of seeing the angels above – future and past incarnations. With the time passing, a man bends more and more towards the ground, more and more carefully looks under their feet, more and more seldom looks up – just as if in the sense of the future unification with the earth, slowly begins to approach it. The photos by Tomasz Dobiszewski present within themselves the element of uniting these two states, they contain the old that still floats in the sky and the future, whose announcement comes from beneath. Space becomes the metaphor of human time; just as in sleep we can sometimes combine particular periods of time of our life which often are separated by dozens of years; also in these photographs it has become possible to unite unadjacent spaces. Dorota Walentynowicz

ztv [interactive installation / pilot / tv / 40 movies] 2004

installation view, Polygonum, Galeria Miejska BWA, Bydgoszcz / 2007

forma nova oculos terret [silver print photography] 2002 (FRAGMENT)

Tomasz Dobiszewski (born in 1977) in 2005 graduated from Academy of Fine Arts in Poznań, from the Intermedia Photography Workshop directed by Krzysztof J. Baranowski and Stefan Wojnecki. He is a member of the Polish Association of Artists-Photographers. His artistic activity is accompanied by pedagogic practice. He lives and works in Wrocław. He formulates his expressions using photography, video and multimedia installations. The area of interest for the artist is time and space, limitations of the viewer’s perception, illusion and problems of participations.

exibitions [selected] 2010 Synesthesia Festival, CK Agora, Wrocław Polygonum 2, Municipal Gallery bwa, Bydgoszcz IN OUT Festival, Laznia Centre for Contemporary Art, Gdańsk Languorous Happenings, Modern Art Gallery, Bydgoszcz One dog, Municipal Gallery bwa, Bydgoszcz HALLO!, Municipal Gallery bwa, Bydgoszcz Where are we going, DKP Gallery, Wilno (LT) Shadowplay, Mazovian Centre of Contemporary Art “Elektrownia”, Radom 2009 Until do Us Part, Foto-Medium-Art Gallery, Kraków Jeden Pies, Vilnius Railway Station Gallery, Wilno (LT) Artventure, Saarlandisches Kunstlerhaus, Saarbrucken (D) Against Seeing, Foto-Medium-Art Gallery, Kraków Show me Yours, Mannheimer Kunsverein, Mannheim (D) 2008 Now! Artists of Foto-Medium-Art Gallery, Mazovian Centre of Contemporary Art “Elektrownia”, Radom Digital Meat, ZPAF Gallery, Katowice Talk to me. More, Studio BWA, Wrocław 2007 II Festival of Pinhole Photography OFFO, Jastrzębie-Zdrój Made in Poland: Contemporary Pinhole Photography, Brant Gallery, Boston (USA) Light Sensitivity, Galeria pod Atlantami, Wałbrzych Polygonum, Municipal Gallery BWA, Bydgoszcz Made in Poland: Contemporary Pinhole Photography, University Art Gallery – University of Massachusetts Dartmouth, New Bedford (USA) Shreads of time and scraps of memory, Photography Gallery Fokus, Siedlce Made in Poland: Contemporary Pinhole Photography, The Art Institute of Boston, Boston (USA) 2006 Pinholes In Action, Galeria Działań, Warszawa Re-vision – II Warsaw Festival of Art Photography, Galeria Sztuki Mediów ASP, Warszawa Pinhole Photography from Zbigniew Tomaszczuk’s Collection, Wrocław Non Stop Festival, Dom Edyty Stein, Wrocław

Picture of the Year 2005, Hotel Europejski, Warszawa Memorabilia / inSPIRACJE Festival, Amfilada Gallery, Szczecin Camera obscura, ZPAF Gallery, Katowice 2005 Presentation, Brda Gallery, Bydgoszcz Exhibition of Artists from Bydgoszcz, Patras (EL) Object Hunting - Biennale of Photography, Municipal Gallery Arsenał, Poznań Photovision, Wschodnia Gallery, Łódź Pinhole Photography from Zbigniew Tomaszczuk’s Collection / International Photography Festival, Łódź 2004 Crossing time, crossing spaces, CSW Inner Spaces, Poznań Retransmission Festival, Gdańsk, Warszawa, Łódź ESC., Museum of Artists, Łódź Biennale of Photography, Municipal Gallery bwa, Bydgoszcz Exibition of Dwarf Photography, Bydgoszcz, Świnoujście ISCI – on the other side of screen, Kolonia artystów, PGR_ART, Gdańsk Pinhole Photography from Zbigniew Tomaszczuk’s Collection, Galeria pod Schodami, Kraków 2003 Film Festival Offensywa, Wrocław Ciałość, Spiz7 Gallery, Gdańsk 2002 Konstruction3 [dekonstruction], FUgg – Festival Inner Spaces, CSW Inner Spaces, Poznań Hi-story, Gallery 011, Toruń Forma nova oculos terret, Factory, Łódź 2001 Biennale of Photography, Municipal Gallery bwa, Bydgoszcz Absinth Level -1, CSW Inner Spaces, Poznań 2000 La dolce vita, VIII Festiwal Inner Spaces, Poznań