Rytm miasta [65]

 

Warszawa, przejście pod wiaduktem Mostu Poniatowskiego, wrzesień 2019r., aparat: Canon EOS M6.

Rytm miasta [64]

 

Warszawa, schody pod wiaduktem Mostu Poniatowskiego, wrzesień 2019r., aparat: Canon EOS M6.

Rytm miasta [63]

 

Warszawa, schody pod wiaduktem Mostu Poniatowskiego, wrzesień 2019r., aparat: Canon EOS M6.

Rytm miasta [62]

 

Warszawa, schody pod wiaduktem Mostu Poniatowskiego, wrzesień 2019r., aparat: Canon EOS M6.

Zaplecze [1.]

Poznań, department store Alfa, Święty Marcin Street, view from the back, north side; ca 2000; scan from a black and white negative.

The hinterland, or 'scratch' of modernism.

Alfa Department Store was built between 1965 and 1972, designed by Jerzy Liśniewicz, on what was then Armii Czerwona Street, on the site of several tenement houses from the late 19th and early 20th centuries, which were demolished for this purpose. It is a complex of five 12-storey high-rises, connected by a long common plinth in the form of a horizontal two-storey pavilion, with elevations divided by windows framed by vertical ribs. It was built along the northern frontage of the street, hiding behind it the blind walls of two quarters of buildings covering Gwarna, Kantaka and Ratajczaka Streets, which became exposed after the necessary demolitions. This resulted in a specific space separating the old from the new, as the "pavilion" form of the ground floor - in accordance with the modernist doctrine, which genetically most often did not fit into the traditional and historical structure of the city based on the building plot - required open space.

This specific, narrow and elongated space, stretching from the west to the east, like a Heideggerian 'interstice in being' or a 'break in the beingness' of the city, functions at the same time as a symbolic border between two worlds, the horizontal and the vertical, the historical and the contemporary, the pushing in and the pushing out, bearing in itself the traces of the indefiniteness resulting from its character, becoming a specific game of "Aussehen" and "Enseehen" (Ich erinnere hier an Heideggers Spiel von Emergenz und De-Emergenz). "The horizontal is something whose essence includes the open field or fissure (fugue) of vision that surrounds it from all sides," Heidegger wrote in his Conversations on a country road.

Poznań, department store Alfa, Święty Marcin Street, view from the back, north side; ca 2000; scan from a black and white negative.

notatki prowincjonalne [1.]

Minsk Mazowiecki, winter 2010, scan from part b. roll negative 120, frame size 6 x 6 cm, camera: Zeiss Ikon Ikonta 512/16.

A space for milling?

Peripheral cities, far from the centre, frozen by the lack of development prospects, out of time, out of circulation. Without a modernising vision, because globalisation has bypassed them. Deserted and frozen in their time of being-beyond-time, between past and future. Cities whose aim is no longer to act and develop, but only to survive and wait for the slowly approaching disintegration. At the same time such places are attacked by elements that are derivatives of globalisation, but in its "junk" form. New forms, new materials, plasticity and shoddiness, visual chaos. All resulting from a lack of rules.

The modernisation processes taking place on a mass scale are connected - as Zygmunt Bauman put it - with the production of the category of "people - waste", and the factors generating this are: demand, competition, requirements of efficiency and productivity. A category of "redundant people" is being created - unemployed, prisoners, immigrants, refugees, displaced persons, asylum seekers, old and lonely people - for the society of the modern period, who are perceived as social intruders.

Does a person in such a peripheral city have an overwhelming sense of the senselessness of their own existence, of being a part of Bauman's "life on the run"? The more active, younger ones seek their place somewhere far away in the Centre, which is a city on the run, a city of the multiplication of material prosperity and consumption, of the illusion of participation in the mainstream. And the man of the peripheral city can choose - or this choice is made for him - passivity.

Zwielokrotnienia [2.]

Warsaw, PKiN, 2010, frame size 6x9 cm, Kodak Brownie No 2 camera, multiple exposure, scan from 120 Kodak 100TMX negative.

Tame or untamed?

Many times in Konwicki's works, the Palace of Culture became an untamed, foreign, alien axis in the topography of the city, a central point around which the protagonist revolved. It was a symbol of political, cultural and spatial violence in a mutilated city, in times when this political, cultural and spatial violence was not symbolic, but real and affecting everyone. And what did he become when this violence receded?

Tadeusz Konwicki:

"(...) I harassed that poor Palace of Culture, I mocked it. Why: it was some kind of symbol of the Soviet Union's supremacy. When the Soviet Union fell, a clock was installed on the tower, and suddenly I looked up - a nice city hall. And I changed my attitude. I will confess to you, if nobody can hear us, that I like the Palace. I have a view from my balcony, you know, I'm constantly watching what's going on with it."

Adam Michnik, polish press redactor, Gazeta Wyborcza:

"(...) Well, for me the Palace of Culture is all the time a symbol of what would be done to us and to our language and to ourselves if they succeeded."

Tadeusz Konwicki, polish famous writer:

"Adasiu, they have already succeeded once. They erected a gigantic cathedral on today's Piłsudski Square, and it seems to me that in terms of its size it was not much smaller than the Palace of Culture. And it is gone. It has disappeared. So we know how to escape somehow. But the Palace of Culture ... Adasiu, it's such a building now, everyone comes, tourists take pictures of it. Should I continue to hate it? "

Adam Michnik's interview with Tadeusz Konwicki, in Contexts. Polish Folk Art, no. 4 (291), 2010, p. 72.

Marek Nowakowski, writer:

"Does the Palace of Culture deserve to be called a monument? It has already become one and should be protected as such. Although I do grieve about the city being demolished just so a hideous building could stand in the heart of the city. I used to want to tear it down, but I'm used to it now. I also look at it more practically and wonder how much it would cost to demolish it, probably millions. Besides, the Palace in its hideousness is not so lonely in the capital. Its blocks of flats from several dozen years ago or the Foster's office building at Piłsudski Square are brave extras. PKiN is a living souvenir of communist Poland and let it stay that way. "

source: http://sztuka-architektury.pl/article/1658/co-z-palacem

Koneser [1.]

Triptych, Warsaw - Praga, area of former vodka factory Koneser, summer 2009, Czajka II camera, 1/2 frame format 24×36 mm, scan from negative.

The summer of 2009 was a time when the death of the plant had already occurred. The production had finished, the halls were lifeless, empty, with no workers moving around amidst the noise. The machines inside the buildings stood silent, abandoned, entwined in cobwebs and a thick layer of dust, being a kind of enigma as to their original function, when the steam and temperature which had given them movement had gone. A state of suspension in nothingness and emptiness resulting from the lack of action. There is a slow sedimentation, a slow settling of time, before the great change. It came soon and brought a new quality. But it is something else now.

Rytm miasta [1.]

Triptych: Warsaw, Aleje Jerozolimskie, near Rondo de Gaulle, August 2009, Chajka II camera, 1/2 frame format 24×36 mm, scan from Ilford Pan 100 negative.

A triptych is a three-part composition in painting, sculpture or another technique. Three paintings, three takes. Each has its own composition and seems to be autonomous. However, in a triptych each of the paintings enters into a relationship with the other two representations. Relationships are formed, mutual connections, a dialogue is created. One place, one moment, presented in three shots.

Movement, dynamics. Just a city, a mass, a machine .... futurismo?

Wapno - plener [2.]

Wapno, Wągrowiec district, VIVA Club.

Photo: own technique - scanning the imprint on paper of the light sensitive layer from Fujifilm FP-3000B Professional Polaroid print (8.5x10.8 cm), Hasselblad 503CW camera, photo format 6x6 cm.

The town, for which the salt mine was a guarantee of development and better future, suddenly stood on the edge of its existence. From that moment, in October 1977, it stopped developing, a significant part of the population was resettled to other regions of Piła Province, those who remained faced the fact that there will be no more development, no better life associated with the mine. Fear has arisen that what is happening underground, somewhere very deep, as a result of reckless human actions, full of ambition and pride in the laws of nature, focused on profit and efficiency, poses a constant threat. Fatality has hung over the area for many decades, and the abandoned mine buildings towering over the surroundings are a grim threat that the dormant forces of nature may at any time unleash their destructive power. Nemesis may demand its revenge.

And so you have to live in that fear for several decades now.

Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Wapno - plener [1.]

Wapno, area Wągrowiec, a closed, former rock salt mine.

Photo: own technique - scanning the imprint on paper of the light sensitive layer from Fujifilm FP-3000B Professional Polaroid print (8.5x10.8 cm), Hasselblad 503CW camera, photo format 6x6 cm.

In the village of Wapno, located near W±growiec, mining began in 1828 and in the beginning gypsum was the raw material. After finding salt deposits in the village since the third quarter of the 19th century mining began to develop, which undoubtedly influenced the fate of the village in the 20th century. It was connected with a huge extraction of salt deposits in Wapno, which between 1950 and 1965 constituted almost half of the rock salt extraction in Poland. Risky exploitation led to a violent disaster, which took place on August 5, 1977 and caused flooding of one of the levels of the mine. This caused the creation of a sinkhole, which on October 28 began to gradually engulf the center of the village, residential buildings, part of the railroad station. 1,400 residents were evacuated. The mine, which had contributed so much to the development of the village, became its nemesis.

Znalezisko

Warsaw, Łazienki palace park, author no., February / March 2018 ; Fujifilm instax instant photo, image area 6x4.5 cm,

In the digital age, when photos exist only as collections of zero-one information stored on memory cards in smartphones, tablets and hard drives in computers, and can be seen on liquid crystal screens, it is nice to find a photo on the street by accident in the form of a paper. You don't need electricity or batteries to see them, because a traditional photo is an image created by the world itself, through a negative or other photosensitive film, which becomes a kind of gap, creating a distance and delay between the object and the image. At this point, the intersection of two separate processes takes place, which are already happening spontaneously with the help of the incident light through the open shutter of the camera. The first belongs to the field of chemistry and it is the action of light on certain substances, while the second belongs to the field of physics and it is the formation of an image through an optical device on the negative plane. The image formed on the photosensitive membrane becomes a synthesis of these two processes. As Jean Baudrillard wrote in his last essay, the digital age destroyed the photographic image: "The end of the special presence of an object, because it can now be produced in a numerical mode. No more the unique moment of the photographic act, because the image can be immediately removed or transformed. ...) The photographic act was a moment of the simultaneous temporary disappearance of the subject and the object in an instant confrontation, because the shutter button lifted the world for a moment together with its gaze, its activation meant a syncopia, "little death", releasing the mechanical perfection and efficiency of the image - this moment, however, disappeared in process of digital and numerical processing ".

A numerical image - or perhaps calling it a synthetic image after Baudrillard - therefore it can no longer exist as a self-contained image, it needs hardware, software and electricity to exist. Its autonomy fades and it becomes a derivative of some kind of instruction, the effect of the aromatic operation of a computer program, which is responsible for the automatic process of image production itself, and then its storage on a digital medium. The problem often arises that due to a media or software error, the image becomes a useless file of digital information that means nothing. It only shows on the device screen as error. The situation is even worse in the case of the lack of electrical power in the device, because then - a bit contrary to the question contained in the title of the quoted essay - everything digital will disappear due to the lack of its availability.

A photo, a photographic image, is also simply an object in its material form and shape, with a specific texture and even a smell that can sometimes be accidentally found on the sidewalk during a winter walk.

quote from: Jean Baudrillard, Why hasn't everything gone away yet? The last essay, Warsaw 2009.

Wyniki tłumaczenia

Crosscarpatia tour 2003 [4.]

Slovakia, Bardejov, September 2003; Ilford Pan 100 negative scan, frame size 6x9 cm; camera: Ercona II.

Crosscarpatia tour 2003r. [ trasa: Presov - Bardejov - Humenne - Michalovce - Użhorod - Mukaczewo - Czerniowce - Chocim - Kamieniec Podolski]

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Wyniki tłumaczenia

An excerpt from my travel journal: Saturday, September 6, 2003

I left Michalovice at 8.50 by SAD bus (ticket 68 SK, luggage 30 SK). The journey was quick and smooth. After all, it was only 40 km to the border. We were in Uzhhorod even before noon, after a short stop at the border, there were only a couple of Slovaks on the bus, me and the rest of the Ukrainians (about 25 people). The bus passed through the city and stopped at the concrete maneuvering square of the bus station, next to the train station. The first impression after getting off the bus is a sense of alienation that you are an intruder in this place. Everyone seems to be looking at me and seeing that I am a stranger. In a way, this is true, because I was carrying a large backpack on my back, and the locals use the system of large canvas bags during their travels, just like friends from Polish markets. Fortunately, I could see Hotel Uzgorod from the bus windows and knew where to go to find some accommodation.

There were some problems to change cash, finally Saturday, in one hotel they even started looking for a local money changer, but I think he took a lunch break. In front of the department store "Ukraine", on the main street from the train station, a few guys were also doing this job. Well, exchange offices still have the usual door-to-door competition. Finally, I exchanged money at the exchange office in the hotel where I stayed. On the way to the hotel, I meet three guys, also with large backpacks, we exchange smiles as we pass each other. Yes, tourists too, it will turn out that our roads will cross.

The first impressions from Ukraine were perhaps a bit filled with the feeling of alienation in a strange city, with wide avenues and blocks of flats smelling of socialist realism, but the station and hotel are located on the left bank of the Uzh river, developed and built in a typical Soviet style. Wide brochures filled with swirling cars (also the newest BMW and Mercedes with tinted windows and good Lads, also with such glass - first thought: strangers not to see these blondes inside), planted with trees, trade in large pavilions covered with makeshift stalls. And those long distances - at least for me, who is on foot. On the sides of the avenue, there are only commercial blocks and pavilions. It is true that the ground floors of the blocks are also already adapted for commercial and service purposes and modernity is also entering there, but with a color palette, new materials, garish inscriptions and signs, inspired by patterns from Western Europe.

When you go through the city alone, additionally with a heavy backpack, the great spaces and distances that you have to travel, planned with the Soviet panache, begin to be depressing. The individual in such a space is a small, fragile "pollen" meaningless. It is not without reason that there are so many buses, private marshals and taxis driving around the city. A person feels completely different on the other side of the river, there is a normal city in the dimension of European civilization. A normal, charming town with cobbled streets, tenement houses, churches and Orthodox churches. You can feel this Austro-Hungarian atmosphere here, even in space, with later modernist inclusions from the Czechoslovak interwar period. Such a small multicultural melting pot. This fragment of the urban space reflects the history of this region, but in the layout of the city I sense some chaos, something disturbing.

I visited the open-air museum of Transcarpathian Folk Architecture, located on the castle hill, in the late afternoon. Several complete homesteads from the Transcarpathian region are gathered, a wooden church, a mill, etc. There is a strange custom here that all young couples getting married in Uzhgorod come here to photograph and film, together with their families and wedding guests. They play out various romantic scenes, some groups bring vodka, a drink and a snack with them, and they start the wedding party here. On this example, an ethnographer or a researcher of culture can write a dissertation on the new functions of folk architecture gathered in an open-air museum and the open-air museum as such. What people's needs does it begin to satisfy? Museum only? Is it not, however, a phenomenon that such a ritual in the open-air museum becomes an expression of attachment to its rural origin and nostalgia for familiarity? After all, young couples in Poland often choose nicely situated palaces or mansions as the backdrop for their wedding photos. And there, maybe the parents or grandparents of these young couples were still getting married in such a wooden village church, and they had their wedding in an ordinary village yard or inn? Has the open-air museum become a place that preserves the roots of the inhabitants of this large city? After all, during the Soviet era, thousands of rural families moved here as part of socialist social "advancement", but nostalgia remained.

In the afternoon I met two Austrians and an American, volunteers working in a small village school, lost somewhere in the Carpathian mountains (in the area of ​​Rachiv). They teach English there. What could be done, we agreed to dinner in a fairly good and probably fashionable restaurant Kaktus, and then we went out to party. We got to the most fashionable club in the city - speaking to a taxi driver - called Armageddon, with disco, bowling (only two lanes) and a large room with pool tables. There, for the first time in my life, I played bowling, the guys explained the rules to me and somehow it worked. I wasn't even the last! An interesting fact after midnight was an unexpected visit to the disco hall - suddenly there was a wedding procession with a couple of newlyweds. Apparently, the young people took a moment to go to the disco. It was the first time I saw a "disco-bridesmaid". After all, it was the wedding day in Uzhgorod. It was fun until three in the morning.

In the afternoon I met two Austrians and an American, volunteers working in a small village school, lost somewhere in the Carpathian mountains (in the area of Rachiv). They teach English there. What could be done, we agreed to dinner in a fairly good and probably fashionable restaurant Kaktus, and then we went out to party. We got to the most fashionable club in the city - speaking to a taxi driver - called Armageddon, with disco, bowling (only two lanes) and a large room with pool tables. There, for the first time in my life, I played bowling, the guys explained the rules to me and somehow it worked. I wasn't even the last! An interesting fact after midnight was an unexpected visit to the disco hall - suddenly there was a wedding procession with a couple of newlyweds. Apparently, the young people took a moment to go to the disco. It was the first time I saw a "disco-bridesmaid". After all, it was the wedding day in Uzhgorod. It was fun until three in the morning..

Uzhgorod, street in the old city; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.

Uzhgorod, synagogue under renovation, old part of the city; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.

Uzhgorod - Horiany, 12th century Romanesque rotunda st. Anna; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.

Uzhgorod - Horiany, 12th century Romanesque rotunda st. Anna, frescoes in the interior, scene: Adoration of the Magi; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.

Continuation of the travel journal notes:

I got to the facility by marshrutka in the afternoon (traveling with this type of transport to the east is a topic for a separate story). It was a very hot and sunny day. When I managed to go inside, I saw frescoes in a uniform color scheme, with lots of shades of brown, yellow and purple. However, thanks to the unusual light, which in the afternoon intensely penetrated the chapel (now it is the presbytery of the church), they appeared in all their golden luminosity, close to the early Byzantine splendor, which was mystically stimulated by vibrating rays of light.

Uzhgorod - Horiany, 12th century Romanesque rotunda st. Anna, scenes: The Last Supper and the Crucifixion; September 2003; scan from a color diapositive; camera: Pentax MG.