INTERNET LIES

Internet Lies is a series of works, in which I refer to the photos we can see on the web, illustrating the events and problems of the modern world. I wonder how the images (both the standalone and those supplementing articles) affect the viewer and his/her perception. Do we ever question the genuineness of those images, and the emotions built upon them? Are visually striking images from war fronts or catastrophes not leading to even greater superficial treatment of the subject than it has already been presented in the text describing the event? The problem consists in the fact that we have stopped asking ourselves these kind of questions, and the failure to pose certain questions - including those about the images that are depicted on the Internet, is far more dangerous than the inability to provide answers to them.

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In the book entitled “The information bomb”, Paul Virilio formulates an argument for the end of geography, paraphrasing the well-known statement by Francis Fukuyama about the end of history. Geography and distance ceased to be relevant. The information, and the photography supplementing it are, theoretically and practically, available simultaneously, at the same moment. Images that we see over the Internet are on an equal footing; video recorders and cameras are present almost everywhere in the world. Therefore, in my works, I treat each of the images in the same way, whether it raises the problem of a murdered committed against a journalist by terrorists of the Islamic State (which turned out to be a staged execution, and not, as initially thought, a first-hand account), or an ice float drifting somewhere on the coast of Antarctica. The images on the Internet are parallel and simultaneous. Hence, the text string arrangement of INTERNET LIES, the dominant element, is identical in all images - only the colors change. The subject matter of these works is very diverse and presents my answer to the remarkable abundance of information, and the resulting chaos. As Zygmunt Bauman writes in “Globalization”, cheap communication - the ceaseless inflow of news, means that the previously acquired information is quickly suppressed, superseded or flooded by the torrent of information. Quoting the author, this barrage of information: “more likely floods the mind and limits it rather than feed and perpetuate it”.

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The Internet Lies series was created deliberately in the traditional medium of painting. This technique allows you to keep a proper distance, refrain from explicitness. In addition, it was my intention to choose a vertical format instead of horizontal, which would seem natural to this subject matter, and which would refer to a tablet or a laptop. Such a composition refers to the covers of weekly magazines (i.e. the “former” medium, which provided recipients with images properly selected for a given situation). Painting creates a distance to reality, provides a formal meaning, which is of great significance to me, happening on the surface of the canvas, with equally important subject matter referring closely to the political or social reality surrounding us. Each stroke of the brush, “error” in relation to the photographic image, constitute an element expanding the interpretation, moving the recipient away from simple answers which, in the subjects I bring up, are, unfortunately, very easy to obtain. Too easy.