SONG OF THE FUTURE

Katarzyna Wyszkowska’s Song of the Future is a painterly tale of a utopian vision of the world. The exhibition is presented in such a way that viewers can feel like spectators or actors in a theater. The gouaches, delicate, subtle, unobtrusive, are like scenography for a performance about to unfold. The hanging panels washed with watercolor paint, with their subtlety, evoke dreams or visions—materialized utopian visions of the future created by the artist. Humans appear only sporadically on the panels. These images are like a new space, just prepared for repopulation.

Katarzyna Wyszkowska is interested only in positive scenarios for the future. In her art, she presents possible forms of reorganizing gainful employment in tomorrow’s societies, so that people have truly free time that they can manage at their own discretion. This became possible through the introduction of basic income and automation of significant areas of employment. Many professions have been fully automated, with humans replaced by robots, machines, and artificial intelligence that work in laboratories, factories, shops, and farms producing vegetables and fruits. Fundamental changes have also occurred in medicine. Nanobots perform operations at the cellular level, which has significantly improved the prognosis for patients suffering from diseases and ailments that were previously difficult to cure.

In the new world, the housing crisis has been resolved. Mobile modular magnetic homes have become a popular solution. Everyone can have their own module/home. Most importantly, the module can be part of an entire housing estate, but it can be separated, moved, or simply exchanged for another, new, modernized one. Modular units can be rearranged and stacked on top of each other, like building blocks, making them very convenient to use. New homes have been equipped with a self-cleaning function, which has reduced work at this level to a minimum, giving people more time for their passions. The appearance and location method of entire cities has also changed. Movement and transport have been moved to higher levels. Roads, like bridges, are suspended in the air above the ground. Below are parks, forests, gardens where people live.

Time banks have developed—local social initiatives where residents’ skills serve as currency. Through mutual help and exchange, people in their communities have become self-sufficient. Within local skill groups, talents and passions began to be perceived as “goods” that can be exchanged. To minimize the number of things people need, large lending libraries for various equipment were created, which can be borrowed to avoid buying, accumulating, and then throwing away, significantly impacting environmental protection. Animals have ceased to be exploited. Their bodies are no longer commodities used in the food industry or any other. Meat is produced in laboratories.

Song of the Future is an exhibition based on the doctoral thesis that Katarzyna Wyszkowska is working on. Song of the Future is a unique exhibition with the character of a multi-element narrative-installation of painting and drawing, aimed at presenting a post-capitalist world that has the character of a contemporary utopia. In her research, Katarzyna Wyszkowska deals with the issue of work and its possible paths of evolution in the near future. These considerations are close to post-work theory and include reflection on possible forms of social reorganization in the context of forms and scope of work. The topics that Katarzyna Wyszkowska addresses in her art have the character of scientific research, political projects, sociological considerations, but also fantastic visions drawing from literature or science fiction films. The artist’s works presented within the project refer to those currents of science fiction in which optimistic visions of the future are largely based on harmonious coexistence with nature.

Julita Deluga