Krzysztof Slachciak's adventure with Big Questions

- How would you start living if you found out you had one year to live? - Peter M., a long-time friend of mine, once asked. I care less about how he answered his own question, but I was reminded of this incident when I picked up a book by Krzysztof Slachciak entitled "More likely, we are not special," where the author asks the question: are we special? It is, of course, about us, about human beings and about our place in the universe. 

In philosophy, such questions - like, for example, what is the world for, when did it begin, what is the meaning of human life, and so on. - fall into the category of the so-called Great Questions. After Kant, who ruled that it was metaphysics and that it was a waste of time to deal with it, because our cognitive apparatus does not allow us to transcend, that is, to go beyond the immanence of human cognition, philosophers in principle "ceded" such considerations to representatives of the detailed sciences, mainly physicists, astronomers and cosmologists.

Note that all scientific theories, such as the Big Bang, which was supposed to initiate the formation of the universe as we know it, do not answer the question why universe was created, but only describes like possibly could have looked like a certain stage in the formation of this universe. The religious answer to the question of why the universe was created, namely: the universe was created by the Lord God, is based on the belief that it was so, and not on scientific evidence, so it cannot be treated by science as a rational basis for further consideration. This does not mean that the so-called religious hypothesis is false, because how can it be tested? Strictly speaking, it is neither true nor false. We are unable to either confirm or refute it. It is a matter of faith, one believes, the other does not. 

Krzysztof Slachciak seems to take a neutral stance, suspending his judgment on the basic question, leaving the reader room for his own answer. Even by giving his book the title "More likely, we are not unique," he avoids an explicit declaration. From a philosophical perspective, a slightly different question can be posed, which relates to the problem of Christopher S. and Peter M., namely - what does it change for us humans to be absolutely certain (let's assume that it is possible to be absolutely certain) that in the universe we are unique or, conversely, that we are not unique? Would we then start living differently? I think that nothing would change, we would live exactly the same as before. Because we don't know how to live differently. From this it follows that posing such questions and looking for answers to them is logically and linguistically possible, but from a practical point of view - not very important. It is necessary to live both when we are exceptional and when we are not exceptional.

But let's return to Krzysztof Slachciak's photography. How can photography be involved at all in philosophical considerations, which are necessarily always abstract and speculative, conceptual in nature, while photography is as concrete, sensual and non-conceptual as possible. I think Slachciak uses photographic images in philosophical discourse as a metaphor for the existence of "extraterrestrial", "other", "parallel" worlds. To put it simply, his photographs were created in two ways - first, as a result of analog manipulations of negatives, as if "destroying" originally recorded real scenes and views, and then such "scratched", "stained", or partially exposed negatives were reflected on paper in the usual negative-positive process. Secondly - the author used digital technology, making various kinds of deformations, including most often geometrization, of the output digital file, such as portraits of various people. All the photographs in the book (or maybe I should write "photographs" or simply images) seem to say: this is how visual reality can look like in another possible world, maybe "out there" this is how "people" look like. And it is only in this sense that a photograph can function in a philosophical discussion, as an illustration, as an image that evokes in us a certain intellectual mood and openness to something we do not know from everyday experience. 

However, let's note that Krzysztof Slachciak's images were created in our world, so they are no proof of the existence of other worlds, they (these images) only direct our thoughts somewhere further, beyond the familiar horizon. Currently, the documentary paradigm is very popular in photography, as can be seen, for example, in our magazine, so such other, non-realistic photography has a very invigorating effect. It reminds us of the creative, not just recording, possibilities of our medium.

It is also necessary to write a pr word about the book as an object, since its form is rare. The book itself, sewn in soft binding, received a transparent wrapper with black printing, and the whole thing was placed in a silver glossy envelope with the same black printing. The envelope can be sealed, but there is no need to do so if you want to use the envelope repeatedly. Thanks to these procedures, the whole publication takes on the character of a print extremely valuable, not to say priceless, resembling "securities", confirming the receipt of an unexpected huge inheritance.

The aesthetic impression was taken care of by the book's designer - dobosz.studio, that is, Andrzej Dobosz, who is known for his many very successful books and other publications of Pix.Hause in Poznan. The publisher of "More likely we are not unique" is SPOT Art Gallery from Warsaw.

Krzysztof Slachciak (1983) - artist photographer, member of the Union of Polish Artists Photographers, scholarship holder of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, graduate of Adam Mickiewicz University and Poznań University of Economics. He teaches photography at the Faculty of Architecture of the Poznan University of Technology and at the WSCKZiU in Września. He deals with advertising photography on a daily basis. To date, he has presented his works at more than 50 exhibitions and photographic events, both at home and abroad, including galleries PAcamera, Forum Fotografii, Old Gallery of ZPAF, Empty Gallery, Gallery Next to ZPAF, as well as at the "FotoArt Festival" in Bielsko-Biala, the New Art Festival "Labyrinth" in Slubice and Frankfurt-on-Oder, the "Rybnik Photography Festival", the "Fotoperyferie" Festival in Kielce, and the "Days of Alternative Photography" in Warsaw. Author's website: https://impurephotography.eu

You can buy Krzysztof Slachciak's book from us HERE