Everything vibrates, pulsates, trembles – the building, the street, the entire planet; including us. Can we feel and convey our interdependence through this vibratory space?
Listen to the English version:
Samuel Bianchini:
Klaudiusz Ślusarczyk:
Listen to the French (original) version:
Samuel Bianchini:
In the heart of Wrocław, the WRO Art Center building integrates its structural wooden beams with the metal beams of the contemporary part. The Center is located at the intersection of two wide arterial roads, home to several tramway lines whose vibrations regularly pass through the architecture of the building. This vibratory space reminds us, if proof were needed, of the extent to which beings, things, and the environment are interconnected, whether on the scale of a building, a spider’s web, or the planet.
How can we convey this interdependence, our interdependence, through this vibratory space? How can we bring it to life by integrating our activity with that of its public and inhabitants? How can we make this eminently analog space perceptible and even sensorial? How do we understand these “entwined” spaces? Think of the multitudes of vibrations, oscillations, and other beats in ourselves or our surroundings.
To find ourselves in and around this shared vibratory space, to take its pulse, pay attention to it, and even learn to care for it is a unique “dispositif” deployed on-site. Within the WRO Art Center, in a space plunged into darkness, a large circular stand of nearly 2 meters in diameter is installed in the center of the room. Surmounted by a glass object, which takes the form of a building material, the base produces vibrations and sounds that regularly seem to travel within the space. The material of the glass comes from an old discarded reserve of optical glass found in the cellar of the Art Academy.
The glass object, not unlike an optical lens, is crossed by a ray of light. The light source vibrates by the captivating sound diffused by the base: the whole is, in fact, dependent on the capture of the vibrations of the building. These vibrations are due to the effect of local activities in the building itself or around it – such as the passage of numerous trams – or to more distant and profound causes, such as those of geological activity that is usually imperceptible. Whether through the rays of light vibrating and diffracted in the glass object or the sound composition produced in real-time, this “dispositif” allows us to perceive and immerse ourselves in this vibratory space that is both local and distant, known and foreign.
Klaudiusz Ślusarczyk is a theatre practitioner, writer, and visual artist. He is also a lecturer at the New Media Arts Faculty at PJATK Academy in Warsaw. In his work, Klaudiusz draws on various disciplines that explore the possibility of embodying states of exclusion and spatial topologies.
His recent exploration has also led him to scrutinize ideas connected to shaping human subjectivity within digital culture. His investigation has led him to coordinate several projects in Australia, Europe, and Japan. At present, Klaudiusz works and lives in Warsaw, Poland.
klaudiuszslusarczyk.cargo.site
Samuel Bianchini is an artist and associate professor at the École Nationale Supérieure des Arts Décoratifs – Paris (EnsAD) and PSL University Paris.
Supporting the principle of an “operational aesthetic,” he works on the relationship between the most forward-looking technological “dispositifs,” modes of representation, new forms of aesthetic experiences, and sociopolitical organizations, often in collaboration with scientists and natural science and engineering research laboratories.
His works are regularly shown in Europe and across the world: MAAT (Museum Art Architecture Technology, Lisbon), Zürcher Gallery (New York), Wood Street Galleries (Pittsburgh), Nuit Blanche Toronto, Waterfall Gallery (New York), Medialab Prado (Madrid), Palais de Tokyo (Paris), Kunsthaus PasquArt (Biel), Art Basel, Institut Français of Tokyo, Stuk Art Center (Leuven), Fiac, Centre Georges Pompidou (Paris), Deutsches Hygiene-Museum (Dresden), National Museum of Contemporary Art (Athens), Jeu de Paume (Paris), Laboratoria (Moscow), Thessaloniki Biennale, Centre pour l’Image Contemporaine (Geneva), space_imA and Duck-Won Gallery (Seoul), Museum of Contemporary Art Ateneo de Yucatán (Mexico), ZKM (Karlsruhe), Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, etc.
After defending his PhD thesis (of The Université Paris 1 – Panthéon-Sorbonne) in an art center (Palais de Tokyo in Paris) with a solo exhibition, and, more recently, his accreditation to supervise research, Samuel Bianchini is now the head of the “Reflective Interaction” research group at the EnsAD laboratory, and the Chaire Arts and Sciences Co-Director recently founded with École Polytechnique and the Daniel & Nina Carasso Foundation.
He is a member of the SACRe Laboratory (Sciences Arts Création Recherche – EA 7410) of PSL University. He is involved in its doctoral program, for which he supervises PhD in art and design. He is also a member of the Canadian research-creation network Hexagram and an associate member of the Cluster of Excellence Matters of Activity, Humboldt Universität zu Berlin.
Cooperation:
Victor Audouze (sound and music design)
Wojciech Sikora (research-creation engineering)
Marzena Krzemińska Baluch and members of the Faculty of Ceramics and Glass at The Academy of Art and Design in Wrocław: Julia Ciułek, Justyna Dżaman, Grzegorz Bibro, Anna Józefowska (glass research and design)
The project is curated by Klio Krajewska and is designed for the WRO Art Center building, for the 21st Media Art Biennale WRO 2025 (Wrocław, Poland), in the framework of a cooperation between the New Media Art Department of the Polish-Japanese Academy of Information Technology (Warsaw) and the Reflective Interactive Group of EnsadLab, laboratory of the École nationale supérieure des Arts Décoratifs (University Paris Sciences & Lettres).
The pedestal used for this installation was previously designed for The Appprentices (2022) – an art project by Victor Audouze, Samuel Bianchini, Elena Tosi Brandi, Corentin Loubet and Hugo Scurto.
