Eugeniusz Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroclaw
About invisible forces that shape our actions, in a form that blurs the boundaries between physical and digital reality.
Free will seems so real and self-evident that questioning it evokes a deep internal resistance. The sense of agency is deeply rooted in human life; we base our legal systems, morality, and most religions upon it. However, it’s easy to notice that from the very beginning of our lives, we are shaped by our environment, woven, so to speak, by the events that influence us. These metaphorical threads both connect us to our surroundings and restrict our movements. Thanks to them, we can remember, but they also make it hard to forget. They place us in a certain reality and hold us tightly, not allowing us to detach from it. When asked about the limits of our autonomy, we respond defensively – after all, every decision I’ve made was mine.
This work is an immersive story about the inner conflict between the human desire for free will and the acceptance of its absence. The threads that form the fabric of the animated reality entangle and restrict the character’s movements, symbolizing the invisible forces that determine our choices and actions. The spaces in the animation represent the inner world (a room) and the outer world (the sea), emphasizing that the same laws govern both.
The story of a character trapped in a deterministic universe unfolds on two levels simultaneously: on a large screen and a mobile device screen – in augmented reality (AR), where the boundary between animation and physical space blurs as elements of the animation extend into the real world. The viewer can expand the scenes by pointing a device’s camera at pictograms displayed on the screen.
The real world is portrayed as one free from fatalism, and it is here that the longed-for agency is found, through the final merging of both spaces and the character’s transition from a two-dimensional world into a three-dimensional one. The project explores the concept of discovering the true nature of the world by breaking the fourth wall, posing questions about the nature of our existence: does life more closely resemble a chain of cause and effect from which we cannot escape, or are we outside of a determined system, capable of following a path chosen entirely by ourselves?
Róża Skrzypecka works in 2D and 3D animation and photography. Her works are often related to philosophical themes and fears present in everyday life. She also draws inspiration from nature. With animation, she creates worlds and shows the concepts that bother her as visual metaphors that are easier to perceive. She is interested in the intertwinings of computer-created reality with the real world and seeks ways to combine them.
ig: roses.works
