Szymon Rogiński | Solastalgia

Szymon Rogiński | Solastalgia

Gallery Duża Scena UAP, 24 Wodna Str.
Curator: Agnieszka Tarasiuk
Opening: 23.10.2023, 18:00
Duration: 21.10-8.11.2023

Szymon Rogiński
SOLASTALGIA
The Australian philosopher Glenn Albrecht coined the term solastalgia in 2003 to describe the emotions caused by industrial landscape changes. Natural ecosystems are degrading at pace we are unable to emotionally integrate. Wars, extraction of raw materials, pollution and the impacts of climate change are destroying the habitat of people and other beings on a scale never seen before.
Szymon Rogiński shows the catastrophic aspect of everyday life in the interior of global capitalism, whose economic principle is constant growth. Ordinary life – houses, shops, workplaces and means of transport cause a landscape calamity comparable to areas of environmental disasters.
The exhibition consists of three cycles of photography, virtual reality experience, and a sculpture created using the method of photogrammetry and 3D modeling. Various forms of expression are linked by the author’s specific emotional realism. The artist records the space of small and larger Polish towns both using a telephoto lens, which allows him to tell touching vernacular micro-stories, and a wide-angle drone camera. The view from above is not beautiful.

Colophon
Photography, photogrammetry and VR concept and direction: Szymon Rogiński
Curatorial supervision: Agnieszka Tarasiuk
Academic curator: Prof. dr. hab. arch. Bolesław Stelmach
NIAIU coordination: Kacper Kępiński
Musical theme: Macio Moretti
VR sound design and sound installation: Gustaw Gliwinski.
Production of the exhibition and VR application: Marcin Marczyk
Digital Artists: Pavlo Mazur, Martix Navrot, Jagoda Wójtowicz
Programming: Łukasz Nizik
Graphic design: Michal Babski
Special thanks to:Wojtek Markowski

SOLASTALGIA VR
Seeing the amount of destruction, we have done to our landscape, it is difficult to feel
sentimental over the naive aesthetics of provincial stores or sympathetic towards the
tenacity of human efforts. Szymon Rogiński, together with a team of programmers, created a virtual reality environment based on the data recorded using photogrammetry in Warsaw and several other Polish cities. Consciously used technology allows us to see the true face of the reality in which we live.
A visitor to the virtual world of Solastalgia moves like a ghost. VR technology enables a realistic feeling of flight, penetration through walls, hovering over the streets. The buildings and the space look familiar, but the visitor experiences them quite differently than in the real world. A sense of a disembodied presence, evoking questions about the nature of consciousness and the relationship one has with the outside world.