In the programmes at _BW_Lab, we analyse and demonstrate the impact of new technologies on political, social, economic, ecological, cultural processes, and create conditions for designing and exploring alternatives at the interface of art, technology, infrastructure, nature, science and society.

About

The Biennale Warszawa was the name of an interdisciplinary public institution that existed between 2017 and 2022. In January 2023, the Biennale Warszawa Foundation (_BW) was established – a non-governmental organisation that aims both to secure, organise and make available the archives of the Biennale Warszawa and to continue and develop selected programme strands previously carried out within the institution. The _BW programme will be focused around two formats: an online magazine (_BW_Mag) publishing texts and materials on the relationship between art, technology, society and politics, and a laboratory (_BW_Lab) dealing with interdisciplinary activities at the intersection of art, theory, research activity, social and political activism around issues related to the impact of technology on different areas of life.

In the programmes at _BW_Lab, we analyse and demonstrate the impact of new technologies on political, social, economic, ecological, cultural processes, and create conditions for designing and exploring alternatives at the interface of art, technology, infrastructure, nature, science and society. In our view, we need such an organisation to tame the fear of the future – dominated by gloomy visions, dystopian narratives and catastrophic premonitions – and to reclaim agency, to learn how to use digital technologies wisely and consciously, so that they serve us as humans and planetary ecosystems, rather than killing our creativity and initiative, driving us into addictions, stealing our attention and contributing to environmental degradation.

We combine art, research, theoretical and social activities with political activism. Our field of interest include methodologies developed by political geography, strategic foresight, futures studies, technology assessment, speculative and systemic design, investigative art, OSINT, data science, anthropology and sociology of technology, forensics, art and technology, digital ecology. We attribute a particularly important role to post-forensic activities, which – abandoning the objectified aesthetic used, for example, by the Forensic Architecture group – make use of video, digital animation, deep fakes, artificial intelligence, emphasising the work’s own authorial character and personal relationship to the events that become the object of investigation.

The _BW_Lab initiates artistic experiments, research endeavours and activist actions in which new technologies constitute both (1) a creative medium, (2) a lens to clearly perceive the most important (not necessarily technological) challenges and phenomena of the present, and (3) an object of critical reflection; from a methodical, systematic analysis of the opportunities and risks of new technologies in the context of combating and adapting to climate change, the poetics and politics of new infrastructures of networks and artificial intelligence in close relation to new infrastructures of planetary logistics, energy, military or borders, uncovering algorithmic black boxes, subjecting new autonomous weapons systems to analysis and critique, to experimenting with models of artificial intelligence and, through art, theory, research and activism, recognising its social, cultural, political and ecological consequences.

Challenges such as pandemics, climate change, rising sea and ocean levels, broken supply chains, surveillance capitalism (Shoshana Zuboff), data colonialism (Ulises Ali Mejias), migration (including climate migration), war in Ukraine, Gaza, Lebanon, including cyber warfare (Svitlana Matviyenko), do not respect the boundaries of neighbourhoods, states, regions, continents or those of international agreements. That is why in _BW_Lab we adopt a planetary perspective. At the same time, however, we provoke reflection on how what is closest to us can resonate with what comes from seemingly geographically, culturally or socially distant places. At a time of growing conflicts and geopolitical tensions, in which technology plays a prominent role giving rise to new forms of planetary violence, climatic and economic migrations, the metamorphosis of Europe’s liberal heart into a brown heart (one of the causes of which is algorithmic polarisation), the emergence of new forms of authoritarianism (also digital), we need a planetary and translocal reflection, and therefore an interest in what is a little further away, which could provide a bridge between the localities of Warsaw and those of Beirut, Lagos, Gaza, Delhi, Hanoi, Ljubljana, Kyiv or Kampala.

 

 

Team

Bartosz Frąckowiak
curator, researcher, strategic foresight advisor. He analyzes how technologies influence systems and infrastructures and create alternatives at the intersection of #art, #tech, #politics and #society. As a curator, he focuses on artistic projects that not only employ new technologies but subject them to critical analysis, revealing hidden mechanisms of their operation and social impact. From 2017 to 2022, he was deputy director of Biennale Warszawa, responsible for research programs and international cooperation, and currently serves on the board of Biennale Warszawa Foundation. From 2014 to 2017, he was deputy director of Polski Theatre in Bydgoszcz. At Biennale Warszawa, he co-created the program of an institution combining art, research and social activism, developing projects on the future of democracy, labor, and technology. At 4CF, he conducts research processes using various strategic foresight methodologies in areas including artificial intelligence, cybersecurity, metaverse, AI impact on labor market, future of food systems, supply chains, and the future of European industrial systems (automotive, energy-intensive industries, and aerospace). He also ran Strategic Dreamers, a company conducting foresight and training projects for institutions such as British Council and Save the Children. His writings have appeared in "Dialog", "Didaskalia", and "Krytyka Polityczna". He directed theatrical performances including "In Desert and Wilderness. From Sienkiewicz and Others", "Africa", "Borders", "Workplace" and a documentary investigation "Modern Slavery".
Ewa Kozik
curator, researcher, and creative producer whose practice focuses on the intersection of art, technology, and society. Her transdisciplinary approach to curating is expressed through projects that combine technology-driven art with issues of social and ecological justice. An important element of her practice is the use of technology as a tool for amplifying marginalized voices and redefining dominant narratives. In her work, she pays particular attention to exploring planetary intelligence and building bridges between human and non-human ecosystems through the use of innovative technological solutions in art. Currently, she co-creates the program of the Biennale Warszawa Foundation and serves as Arts Manager at the British Council. She co-curatorted "Smashing Wor(l)ds: Cultural Practices for re/Imagining & un/Learning Vocabularies" program implemented under the EU Creative Europe Programme. She completed the "AI & BIASES: The Road to Algorithmic Fairness" workshop at the EUI in Florence and the "Cyberwitches and Feminist Technologies" seminar at the Institute for Postnatural Studies. Previously, she worked as a curator and producer at the CCA Ujazdowski Castle and the Museum of Sculpture in Królikarnia (a branch of the National Museum in Warsaw). She holds a degree in philosophy from Trinity College Dublin and cultural studies from the University of Warsaw, complemented by postgraduate studies in art history at Collegium Civitas and "Groups' Trainers" at the Laboratory of Psychoeducation and SWPS. From 2021 to 2022, she worked as a creative producer at Biennale Warszawa, where she also co-created and coordinated a temporary Reception Point for Refugees.
Paweł Wodziński
artist, curator, director of public cultural institutions, author of critical and theoretical texts, lecturer. Director of Polski Theatre in Poznań (2000-2003), Polski Theatre in Bydgoszcz (2014-2017) and Biennale Warszawa (2017-2022), an interdisciplinary institution operating at the intersection of art, theory, research and activism. Board member of the Biennale Warszawa Foundation. Author of dozens of theatre performances, including ‘Solidarity. Reenactment' (2017), ’Solidarity. A New Project' (2017), “Global Civil War” (2018), as well as texts published, among others, in “Dialogue” or the Polish edition of “Le Monde diplomatique”, "Notes na 6 tygodni". Director of festivals and curator of exhibitions at, among others, the Prague Quadriennale and the Zachęta National Gallery. Co-curator of both editions of the Biennale Warszawa ‘Let's organise our future!’ (2019) and ‘Seeing Stones and Spaces Beyond the Valley’ (2022). He teaches at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

Partners

East Europe Biennial Alliance

Off-Biennale Budapest

Bienále Ve věci umění / Biennale Matter of Art

Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art

Kyiv Biennial

Centrum Badań Krytycznych nad Technologiami Uniwersytetu Śląskiego

Goethe Institut Warschau

Fundacja Nowej Kultury Bęc Zmiana i Notes na 6 tygodni

Le Monde diplomatique – edycja polska