Photography has always been a tool that allowed man to explore. Over time, as optical devices, including cameras, became more and more advanced, and their possibilities for discovery grew, not only for scientists and researchers, but also for artists who manifested the natural human qualities of curiosity and observation. This made it possible to expand horizons not only in the scientific field, but also in the artistic field, and became a path for many experimental artists.
Contemporary art photography seems to have even more research and scientific activities in it, because the world around people is changing very fast all the time. Because of this, new questions arise, which not only scientists, but also artists are trying to answer. Despite the fact that the world today is very different from that of, say, 50 years ago, certain questions and observations are constantly bothering and recurring. Also, the eternal conversation with the past overlaps with the present time and new issues, which young artists such as Marta Pogorzaly take up the challenge and through their prism try in their works to seek answers, but also to ask the audience.
Martha's projects use a technique from the early days of photography, namely the pinhole camera, but also contemporary tools such as CCTV cameras and those used in surveillance. She consciously uses her "research" tools in her projects, asking questions about the reality of the world of java and dreams. Using pinhole photography, he investigates the phenomena of consciousness and subconsciousness that create human reality. As it were, he pulls out unreal images from dreams to renew questions about the reality of the world. With the help of modern technology, he delves into observations of man and his psyche in the new reality that the pandemic has become for many people.
We can read about Marta's projects:
Experiences (un)imaginary - Sleep paralysis is called a phenomenon during which a person in the REM (rapid eye movement) phase wakes up and experiences a waking dream, so to speak. The person experiencing it is not really sleeping at all - he is OBVIOUS. During sleep paralysis there is total body inertia, powerlessness and helplessness. Selected visions or even hallucinations causing sensory disturbances materialize before the eyes of the "viewer" into real and three-dimensional images. Sleep paralysis gives form to all fears, imaginings and rejected subconscious content. It is estimated that the experiences I described above are experienced by about 8% of the entire world population. The starting point of my project is to visualize an experience that is real, that is, one that cannot be disputed in any way because it is a medical-scientific fact. Human experience and interest in psychoanalysis provoked me to ask the question: to what extent is our world real? Can we trust what we see? The goal of artistic action is to question the real world by meeting the unreal with the everyday. Thus, I treat the photographic medium - due to its debatable value of capturing reality - as a way of observing worlds that are opposite but overlapping.
Through the Telescope, he looked at his Soul.
What seemed completely irregular, he saw and showed as beautiful Constellations: and added to the Consciousness the worlds hidden inside the worlds.
– Carl Gustav Jung, Memories, dreams, thoughts
Apocalypse time - The aim of the project is to comment on and address the epidemiological situation and reflect on the psychological condition of man in the new reality. The series of photographs were taken with the use of traffic cameras in Bialystok, thanks to which finished images were created - straight from the transmission of these cameras in real time. The photographs that are part of the project are a direct freeze-frame of the live broadcast footage. In this situation, the photographer creates the project without using his own camera, using elements found in the urban space to show surreal situations. The project shows that perhaps at first glance not much has changed - slightly more empty streets, a man in a mask - while what has changed more is the mental condition of the man. As the artist walks through the empty streets of the city, he balances on the edge of reality and emerging illusions and fears. This state of affairs causes a flurry of questions, often left unanswered. Forced social isolation introduces an imbalance in the mental stability of the individual, who, deprived of contact with others, is subjected to an attempt to face his own self alone. Looking at the project from the perspective of the medium used, a manifesto is formulated concerning disagreement with a kind of surveillance in the form of ubiquitous monitoring, causing invasion of privacy and encroachment into the sphere of human comfort. Performative actions are taken, depicting a personal view of freedom in every sense of the word, especially personal freedom and freedom of thought. It is a protest against media propaganda, causing anxiety in the viewer and causing conflict in the process of affirming information in the broadest sense.
Link to video, part of the project:
Marital history - The photographic series is a metaphorical record of the development of a love relationship between two people. Through the use of incidental symbols referring to the narrative accompanying dreams interpreted psychoanalytically, we can find universal truths about human relationships and their meaning.
Marta Pogorzaly - b. 04.02.2000 in Poznań visual artist, cultural studies scholar at the University of Bialystok and photographer (graduate of the Academy of Photography and Entrepreneurship in Bialystok). Co-organizer of the Bialystok INTERPHOTO International Festival of Photography and, since 2021, assistant to the Artistic Director. Co-founder and president of the student art gallery - Cultural Exhibitions Office.
