What is “F.O.F”?

Fight or Flight describes the complex survival reaction of living organisms, commonly known as adrenaline. The exhibition presents an analysis of this process not only from a biological point of view but also from an economic and cultural perspective. Installations are placed between the walls of the United Climbing space. Although minimalist in form, they abound in confrontations with extensive visions of the future of humanity, such as those presented by Leszek Kołakowski or John Danaher. Created with modern machines such as 3D milling and 3D printers, as well as various AI models and smartphones, these installations embody the characteristic hope for a better tomorrow. What else are the bodies of people playing with climbing problems, lying on sun-warmed mats amidst the industrial halls of WSK, if not a longed for perfect world? This experiment combines two different subcultures without aiming to achieve any specific results.

The exhibition ‘Absence of Protagonists’ is a result of a students workshop by the guest studio, led in 2021/22 by Iza Tarasewicz at the Intermedia Department of the Poznań University of Arts.

“Unhappy the land that needs heroes” 
– Bertolt Brecht, “The Life of Galileo” (1939) sc. 13

In traditional western narratives, the reader is encouraged to identify with a singular protagonist, a hero defined by agency, free will, and psychological depth, who undergoes an evolution and resolves problems as the story progresses from beginning, middle, and end. Our world today can be characterized as one of continuous crisis and uncertainty, from the COVID pandemic to increasing environmental collapse, from war in Ukraine and elsewhere to the ongoing physical and symbolic violence brought about through the intersection of economic, geopolitical, gendered, sexual, and racial injustice. Given this crisis, there is a tendency to look for new heroes who would simply save us from the problems of today. Yet it is precisely this heroic “monomyth”, the idea that all problems are personal and they’re all solvable by a singular, dramatic individual, that has distracted us from the possibility of deeper, broader change or of holding accountable the powerful who create and benefit from the status quo and its myriad forms of harm. The artists in the exhibition “Absence of Protagonists” contest these simplified conceptions of identity and agency, addressing feelings of disillusionment, confusion, and disharmony to destabilize the fantasies of a singular saviour and its imbrication in the harmful myths of our contemporary era. The systems that we struggle against in the contemporary world, that MUST be struggled against, will not be brought down by a lone hero. Refusing to be seduced by toxic subjectivities and the lure of personality, these artists use a variety of media and formal strategies to make visible and confront the problems of today, and to imagine new narrative forms and ways of living and being in our time of chaos. The very absence of protagonists, antagonists, and simple plots curiously brings the individuals to the forefront, displaying the intricate complexity, mundanity, and subjectivity that make us all who we are.
– Post Brothers

The prefix velo has been adopted from the word velocipede. Today it is often used as a collective mark of various types of circumstances linked to the vehicles with one and more wheels powered by muscles.

Bicycles started to appear in the history of art a long time ago. We can find them in the works of artists such as: Marcel Duchamp (Bicycle Wheel), Robert Rauchenberg (Riding Bikes), William De Koonig (Woman and Bicycle), Ai Wei Wei (Forever Bicycles), Bas Jan Adler (Fall II), Natalia Gonczarova (Cyclist), Guido van der Werve (Nummer veertien) and others.

Velo-art is about all creative activities that use or relate to the world of bicycles. It is above all the freedom given by the two wheels. Simplicity. Integration with the surrounding space, natural or unnatural, through direct experience of speed, distance, adrenaline, movement, effort, new places, emotions, people, love to bicycle etc. Simple relation between bike, art and human.

Therefore it confronts with the world of definitions. It’s another description, the presence of which is beautiful but doubtfully necessary. It balances on the edge of emptiness and excessive limitations. Thus where is the place for freedom in the world where the tiniest thing has been defined or on the another hand what would a zebra crossing with no straps be? No one ever said that art has to challenge the world through seriousness. It unfortunately leads to the definition of contemporary art; for example – the Bicycle Wheel designer – M. Duchamp’s „If I Call It Art, It’s Art”. Does it seem to keep us in a single place for years now or it allows us to breath the way we want to? How can you evolve something that is everything?