Konrad Chmielecki | AGH University of Science and Technology (original) (raw)

Papers by Konrad Chmielecki

Jędrzej Kotarski (red.), Pomiędzy folklorem a folkloryzmem. Publikacja z okazji Jubileuszu 55-lecia pracy naukowej Profesor Violetty Krawczyk–Wasilewskiej. Warszawa - Łódź: Wydawnictwa Naukowe Sub Lupa, s. 115–150 (ss. 36), 2024

This essay endeavors to elucidate the issues of Cultural Analytics within media visualization met... more This essay endeavors to elucidate the issues of Cultural Analytics within media visualization methods as an emerging new research paradigm in Digital Humanities. Central to this exploration is the question: What are Cultural Analytics? In this paper, I define Cultural Analytics as the utilization of computational visualization techniques to delve into contemporary and historical cultures, focusing on extensive cultural datasets and visual media. While traditional Digital Humanities research has centered on textual data, historical artifacts, and the digitization of various media objects, Cultural Analytics emphasizes the examination of massive cultural datasets and visual media – both digitized visual artifacts, and contemporary interactive media. In the case of media visualization methods, this approach, on the one hand, retains the expansive viewpoint of the situation provided by traditional data visualization, on the other hand, while diverging from fictionalization. Cultural Analytics introduces innovative perspectives on media visualization methods such as “close reading” and “distant reading.” Lev Manovich and his research team have developed the ImagePlot application, which is a free software tool for visualizing images and videos of any size, using media visualization methods. In my opinion, Cultural Analytics within media visualization methods falls in the scope of Digital Humanities. This essay concludes with an analysis of the research project “Phototrials” from the perspectives of Cultural Analytics, Software Studies, and media visualization methods, which reaffirms the significance of Cultural Analytics within Digital Humanities.

Perspektywy Kultury, 3(46), 2024

This essay explores the visual culture of the selfie through the lens of art history, particularl... more This essay explores the visual culture of the selfie through the lens of art history, particularly focusing on the art of self-portraits and the “culture of narcissism.” It examines key works such as Albrecht Dürer’s Christ as the Man of Sorrows, Self-Portrait of the Artist Holding a Thistle, Self-Portrait with White Gloves, Self-Portrait in a Fur Collar; Andrzej DudekDürer’s Self-Crucifixion, Multiplied Metaphysical and Telepathic SelfPortrait III; Caravaggio’s Narcissus; Salvador Dalí’s Metamorphosis of Narcissus; and Jacek Malczewski’s Christ Before Pilate. The second part of the essay delves into Jacques Lacan’s concept of the “mirror stage,” a developmental phase occurring between six and eighteen months of age, where a child transitions from the real to the imaginary order. This stage involves a child’s holistic inspection of their reflection, resulting in “primary narcissism” – a self-love rooted in autoeroticism before the formation of the ego. In the conclusion of the essay by comparing the selfie to classical self-portraits and the Narcissus motif, the author argues that contemporary art of self-portraits revisits the same narcissistic mechanisms seen in art history. This latter art form was depicted by Caravaggio in his Narcissus as the prototype of the selfie, which, thanks to the taking of self-reflection form, continues the legacy of self-portraiture and it became the icon of neuroaesthetics.

Przegląd Artystyczno–Literacki (1992–2002) nr (88), ISSN 1230-9745, s. 106–121, ss. 16, 1999

Kwartalnik Filmowy nr 33 (93): Teresa Rutkowska (red.), Filmowy portret artysty. Warszawa: Instytut Sztuki PAN, s. 123–142, ss. 20, 2001

Abstract: This essay is dedicated to the work of world-renowned cinematographer Vittorio Storaro.... more Abstract: This essay is dedicated to the work of world-renowned cinematographer Vittorio Storaro. Chmielecki analyzes the visual aspects of Carlos Saura's "Tango" and he argues that Stararo representers the attitude according to which the pre-cinematic reality turns out to be too poor to be able to set the universal of film pictures, thereby to be regarded as an artwork. The world perceived must be supplemented with author's inventiveness that pursues a formal goal and introduces the reality to a system of relationships. The transformation of the world is carried to such an extent that its all elements achieve a specific visual shape. In this sense, Storaro tries to realize the idea of faith in pictures.

Perspectives of Culture, Vol. 42, No. 3, pp. 201-225, (pp. 25), 2023

Abstract: The essay attempts to outline the issues of the visual culture of the selfie from the p... more Abstract: The essay attempts to outline the issues of the visual culture of the selfie from the perspective of “visual identity” that has referred to contemporary art. In this paper, I analyze examples of the following artworks: The Reincarnation of Saint ORLAN by the French artist ORLAN, the Bodies© INCorporated website, designed by Victoria Vesna, The Little Revenge from the Periphery by José Bedia Valdés, The Chief: He Who Sold Africa to the Colonists and Autoportraits by Samuel Fosso. In addition, this paper is focused on an analysis of the “biopower” concept which refers to Michel Foucault’s “docile bodies.” This concept is based on the neoliberal power process over the production of living beings and exercising control over them is an updating of the development of political, democratic, and economic institutions, as well as information and biocybernetic technologies. The “docile bodies” concept strengthens the conviction of the bodies must become the object of biopower interventions for the “perfect body” concept to act upon the strictly defined appearance of the body consistent with the standards and norms of “beauty” adopted by visual culture. In this situation, the selfie and photographic images produce homogeneous images, which function as “ideological texts” making our “visual identity” and self-image. This concept is given a lot of considerable space in this paper because the selfie can be regarded as an “personality identity” shaping the visual appearance of our bodies. In the essay’s conclusion, I claim that the visual culture of the selfie seems to be an aesthetic phenomenon shaped by a visual medium such as digital photography. However, photography does not is the key medium of the selfie. My analyses were aimed at showing that this role plays an “image,” no matter how it can be understood.

Leszek Korporowicz, Agnieszka Knap-Stefaniuk, and Łukasz Burkiewicz (eds.), Cultural Studies. Series: "Social Dictionaries", eds. Wit Pasierbek and Bogdan Szlachta. Krakow: Ignatianum University Press, pp. 307-326, (pp. 20), 2022

DEFINITION OF THE TERM: In humanistic reflection, ‘the visual turn’, also called ‘the pictorial t... more DEFINITION OF THE TERM: In humanistic reflection, ‘the visual turn’, also called ‘the pictorial turn’ (by w.J.t. Mitchell) and ‘the iconic turn’ (Ikonische Wende) (by Gottfried Boehm), can be defined as a theoretical and methodological shift from the linguistic paradigm to the pictorial or visual paradigm. this new paradigm is situated within Visual Culture studies or Visual studies and is aimed at critical and comprehensive examination of the increasing role of images in contemporary society.

HISTORICAL ANALYSIS OF THE TERM: during the last two decades of the 20th century, ‘the pictorial turn’ and ‘the iconic turn’ led to the development of two academic disciplines: American Picture theory and its German version Bildwissenschaft (which also has its American counterpart called Image science), both of which emerged around the same time. According to Mitchell, the pictorial turn also gave rise to the development of Norman Bryson’s semiotics of the image, which is now considered a historical discipline because its development took place in the 1980s.

DISCUSSION OF THE TERM: American considerations on the pictorial turn were largely motivated by an objection to the dominance of language and the absorption of the icon by the logos; instead, they chose to focus on the interpretation of the logos of the image. In his conception of the iconic turn, Boehm, like Mitchell, refers to the conception of the linguistic turn. In his search for the logic of the image – which would be distinct from the logic of language – he starts by asking the question ‘What is an image?’ (‘was ist ein Bild?’) and pointing to the extremely wide range of philosophical connotations of this term.

SYSTEMATIC REFLECTION WITH CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS: In the sense proposed by Mitchell, the pictorial turn far exceeds the models of ‘textuality’ and ‘discursivity’. unlike American visual culture studies, in the case of Boehm’s iconic turn the inspiration for this inter- and transdisciplinary image science comes from philosophising art historians and aestheticians (beginning with Aby Warburg) who were interested in various forms of imagery and visuality.

Leszek Korporowicz, Agnieszka Knap-Stefaniak, Łukasz Burkiewicz, (red.), Studia kulturowe, seria: „Słowniki Społeczne”, pod red. Wita Piesierbka i Bogdana Szlachty, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Akademii Ignatianum w Krakowie, s. 315–334, (ss. 20), 2022

DEFINICJA POJĘCIA: w refleksji humanistycznej „zwrot wizualny”, funkcjonujący pod nazwami zwrotu ... more DEFINICJA POJĘCIA: w refleksji humanistycznej „zwrot wizualny”, funkcjonujący pod nazwami zwrotu piktorialnego (the pictorial turn) w.J.t. Mitchella i jego niemieckiego odpowiednika, zwrotu ikonicznego (Ikonische Wende) Gottfrieda Boehma, można określić jako swego rodzaju przekierunkowanie teoretyczno-metodologiczne z paradygmatu językowego na obrazowy albo wizualny, które mieści się w obszarze studiów kultury wizualnej (Visual Culture Studies) albo studiów wizualnych (Visual Studies), a także poddaje wielostronnym krytycznym badaniom wzrastającą rolę obrazów we współczesnym społeczeństwie.

ANALIZA HISTORYCZNA POJĘCIA: na przestrzeni lat 80. i 90. XX wieku „zwrot piktorialny” i „zwrot ikoniczny”, doprowadził do rozwoju dwóch dyscyplin naukowych: amerykańskiej teorii obrazu (Picture Theory) i jej niemieckiej wersji, czyli nauki o obrazie (Bildwissenschaft), która posiada również swój amerykański odpowiednik: Image Science. te dyscypliny naukowe powstały mniej więcej w tym samym czasie. według Mitchella zwrot piktorialny doprowadził również do rozwoju semiotyki obrazu normana Brysona – dyscypliny uważanej obecnie za historyczną, ponieważ jej rozwój przypada na lata 80. XX wieku.

PROBLEMOWE UJĘCIE POJĘCIA: amerykańskie rozważania na temat zwrotu piktorialnego były w dużej mierze uwarunkowane przez sprzeciw wobec dominacji języka, zapanowanie nad ikoną przez logos, i sprowadzały się do interpretacji logosu obrazu. z kolei Boehm w swej koncepcji zwrotu ikonicznego, podobnie jak Mitchell, nawiązuje do koncepcji zwrotu lingwistycznego (linguistic turn), poszukując logiki obrazu różnej od logiki języka, ale w pierwszej kolejności zadaje pytanie „czym jest obraz?” („was ist ein Bild?”) i wskazuje na niezwykle szeroki zakres jego filozoficznych konotacji.

REFLEKSJA SYSTEMATYCZNA Z WNIOSKAMI I REKOMENDACJAMI:
w rozumieniu zaproponowanym przez Mitchella zwrot piktorialny daleko wykracza poza modele „tekstualności” i „dyskursywności”. w przypadku zwrotu ikonicznego Boehma inspiracja inter- i transdyscyplinarnymi badaniami nad obrazem bierze inicjatywę, inaczej niż w przypadku amerykańskich studiów kultury wizualnej, od filozofujących historyków sztuki i estetyków, którzy (począwszy od aby warburga) interesowali się różnymi formami obrazowania i wizualności.

Perspektywy Kultury, tom 38, nr 3, s. 387-409, (ss. 23), 2022

Abstract: The paper deals with the issues of new visibility and reproduction of the field of soci... more Abstract: The paper deals with the issues of new visibility and reproduction of the field of social “seeing” in blind people as “visual subjects” from the perspective of Visual Culture Studies. Taking an assumption that visual culture entails considerations of blindness, the invisible, the unseen, and the unseeable from a social perspective, the author tracks the ways in which the blind function as visual subjects in a visual society, i.e., people who are constituted as an active social agent of sight (regardless of his or her biological capacity to see) and as the effect of a series of categories of visual subjects. In this context, Nicholas Mirzoeff refers to the example of the blind, who became an object of social state concern at the beginning of the panoptic era, leading to the establishment of state institutions for the blind. Panopticism created the blind as what has now become a “natural” target of social, state, and concern precisely because “seeing” and “being seen” have become problematic in the concern of the disciplinary nation-state. In his essay
In the Question of Cultural Identity, Stuart Hall distinguishes three types of subjects: the Enlightenment, sociological, and postmodern. The reference to the rational subject also applies to the blind. Mitchell mentions René Descartes’s Optics, in which the philosopher considered sight an “extended form of touch,” comparing it to “a staff used by the blind” to strengthen the path in real space. Similarly, from the perspective of the postmodern subject, it is worth recalling Paul Virilio’s model of “sightless vision” – the reproduction of intense blindness that is the last form of the “industrialization of the non-gaze” by “the vision machines.” Jean Baudrillard’s concept of the fractal subject proves that the life of the blind is “the social construction of vision.” The visual subject that we find in the concept of biopictures by W.J.T. Mitchell leads us to the conclusion that images can be created in a way like creating images of an object, by feeling them in the imagination of blind people. Nicholas Mirzoeff suggests an introduction to the term “visual event” instead of the concept of “visual subject,” which is generated in an interface with visual technology on a computer-mediated communication process, in which blind people can also participate. Finally, The Passing by Bill Viola has been interpreted in the context of internal images. It is difficult not to recall this concept when talking about pictures that are the result of the blind “seeing.” The images generated by the “mind’s eye” come from dreams, memories, images, and imaginations in which we see ourselves, but from the observer’s point of view as a blind person. Viola assigns this function of internal images to the video camera which acts as a tool of awareness as it becomes a reflection of our “I.” According to Viola, one can describe the dynamics of consciousness, which at one end places external images (also perceived by the blind) and internal images (states of feelings, emotions, dreams, and the social effects of “seeing”).

Studia Medioznawcze (Media Studies), Vol. 22, No. 3 (86), pp. 962-994, (pp. 33), 2021

Scientific objective: The concept of ocularcentrism as the dominant ideology acts as a very impor... more Scientific objective: The concept of ocularcentrism as the dominant ideology acts as a very important role within visual shaping photographic models of vision used by social media and photographic images. The paper focuses on the concept of ocularcentrism as the dominant effect of sight in visual culture, the problems of "ocularcentric discourse," presented in forms of the "phono-logo-centrism" paradigm, and ocularcentric ways of seeing, or scopic regimes: "Cartesian perspectivalism," the "Art of Describing," "baroque vision," and photographic models of vision that have been discussed in two theoretical contexts: Lev Manovich's Software Studies and Cultural Analytics methods and Zygmunt Bauman's consumer society theory that can be understood as the "embodied eye" and the "armed eye" concepts. Research methods: I suggest use of critical methods of Martin Jay's Visual Studies in the perspective of the history of visuality from the ancient Greek to the philosophical, twentieth-century French thought, undertaking Software Studies and Cultural Analytics methods, in an analysis of the research project of Manovich's "Phototrails," as well as Bauman's consumer society theory in an analysis of the photographic project of Alain Delorme's "Totems." Results and conclusions: I hope that exploring theoretical problems of visual culture will allow researchers to open a new fi eld of reciprocal correspondence between the concept of ocularcentrism, photographic models of vision, Software Studies, and Cultural Analytics methods, as well as Bauman's consumer society theory, based on possibility of coming to conclusions, posing questions, and hypotheses. Cognitive value: The paper is an attempt to make a contribution to the hitherto unexplored research on the concept of ocularcentrism as the dominant effect of sight, subjecting to analysis the research project of Manovich’s “Phototrails,” from the perspective of Software Studies and Cultural Analytics methods within “media visualizations,” as well as the photographic project of Delorme’s “Totems,” from the perspective of Bauman’s consumer society theory, consumerism, consumption, and social exclusion.

Art Inquiry. Recherches Sur Les Arts, Vol. XXII (XXXI): Grzegorz Sztabiński and Paulina Sztabińska-Kałowska (eds.), Art Narratives - Narratives on Art, Łódź: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe, s. 157-181, (ss. 25), 2020

The paper attempts to map out the main issues of Visual Culture Studies as the emergent theoretic... more The paper attempts to map out the main issues of Visual Culture Studies as the emergent theoretical formation of the performative narrativity of biopictures in the context of biopower, biopolitics and the “War of Images” as the examples of iconophobia and clonophobia. The subject of the performative narrativity of biopictures has been taken up in a discussion on some main ideas that seem to have been fundamental both for the negative and positive aspects of W.J.T. Mitchell’s agency concept of “visual subjects” in the context of meaning reproduction and iterability. The concept of biopictures also includes notions such as the very idea of an analogy to living forms of organisms, which is a metaphorical relationship, similar in the nature of things to the relation between biological and social bodies. The narrative issues of biopictures are addressed in the scenes where we see the velociraptor with the letters of the DNA code projected onto its skin, in Steven Spielberg’s Jurassic Park (1993), and the anonymous storm troopers who march off to their deaths, in George Lucas’s Star Wars, Episode II: Attack of the Clones (2002). Performative biopictures can be considered as living organisms, thematically referring to visual digital techniques and genetic engineering. Writing on biopictures as the tools of biopower and biopolitics, Mitchell recalls Michel Foucault’s and Giorgio Agamben’s concepts in which biopower and biopolitics have participated in the fundamental process of neoliberal power and creating living beings while exercising control over them. In the paper, the narrative and performative features of image as a “visual subject” have been described in feminist theory, cultural studies (Jacques Lacan, Stuart Hall) and visual culture studies (Nicholas Mirzoeff). The paper contains descriptions of the photo-collage From Dust to DNA by Kevin Clarke and Mikey Flowers, and a mural on the viaduct on the road to Tikrit, depicting Saddam’s clone army. These artworks have been discussed in the context of the “War on Terror,” in which all contemporary terrorism is bioterrorism based on the “suicide metaphor” of an “autoimmune disease” used by Jacques Derrida. The essay concludes with a reference to Mieke Bal’s “close reading” concept, in which performativity is combined with narrativity, as narrators can assign the agency to the subject of narration and they embody anxieties over the processes of images making and destroying (iconoclasm).

Komunikowanie (się) w mediach elektronicznych. Język, edukacja, semiotyka. Monografia, red. Mirosław Filiciak, Grzegorz Ptaszek, Warszawa: Wydawnictwa Akademickie i Profesjonalne, s. 298–312, (ss. 15), 2009

Abstract: In this article I show theses about mediated visual communication on the Internet. In o... more Abstract: In this article I show theses about mediated visual communication on the Internet. In opinion of many theorists the Internet is a medium of the textual communication and the technological development of (audio)visual media does not change much in this respect. This article is an attempt of the presentation of the Internet Mediated Communication in other theoretical context. An author searches for constructive elements of this phenomenon in the picture turn and the performative paradigm. A symptom of the picture turn is communication with an image, which assume proportions of a language system. However, the performative paradigm draws attention to visual aspects of social behavior. According to described tendencies, the development of visual communication in the Internet is proceeded by a dint of performative aspects of behaviors of internauts, visual elementals of avatar representations and other possibilities of a convert between an image and a text in the process of the Internet communication.
However, I pose a question: can we in the current situation talk about the emergence of Internet-Mediated visual communication on the Internet? It seems that it is most convenient to indicate certain trends in the development of the communication process. In this situation, performative aspects of Internet users' behavior, visual elements of avatar representations and all other possibilities of visualizing web-based text seem responsible for the development of visual communication on the Internet.

Konrad Chmielecki, Beata Lisowska (red.), Teoria obrazu w naukach humanistycznych, Łódź: Wydawnictwo Akademii Humanistyczno-Ekonomicznej w Łodzi, s. 117–132, (ss. 16), 2015

Abstract: In the approach presented here, the aesthetics of film image is part of a larger projec... more Abstract: In the approach presented here, the aesthetics of film image is part of a larger project, which we can call the aesthetics of audiovisual media. It is a field addressing the issues of contemporary cultural changes that are taking place especially at the interface of different generations of media images, including film ones. For this reason, reflection within the aesthetics of the media is between two opposing poles: technical reproduction and computer simulation, between the image of the object and its phantom, which loses its materiality and becomes only a surface. It is also possible to determine two other extreme perspectives on the aesthetics of film image, which make themselves felt especially at the interface between different generations of media images: between analogue and digital image.
The "suspension" between the designated poles concerns the film medium, which is becoming an increasingly susceptible research field for the aesthetics of analog and digital images. The indicated issues seem to be particularly important because the film image is the message currently used by most media audiovisual, which have become the archetypal form of other media images and no longer belong to one medium, but on the contrary, it can be identified with the entire complex audiovisual media using a moving image as a means of communication. This particular audiovisual medium, which occurs in many media, may prove useful in tracking the relations described in the aesthetics of analog and digital image. The article consists of two parts devoted to the analogue aesthetics and the digital image aesthetics. In this article I undertook the verification of the relationship of film image with real reality, which is now gradually relativizing, because digital media used in film production are reversing or abolishing the aforementioned relation of the film image with real reality. In this situation, a film image can be understood as an electronic image (analog-digital).

Widzialność/wizualność obrazu cyfrowego. Pomiędzy fenomenologią a kulturą wizualną, red. Aleksandra Łukaszewicz-Alcaraz, Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Wydziału Malarstwa i Nowych Mediów Akademii Sztuki w Szczecinie, s. 114–134, (ss. 21), 2016

Abstract: The visuality of a digital image is a function of representation and its relation to re... more Abstract: The visuality of a digital image is a function of representation and its relation to real reality. I borrow this main theoretical assumption from the anthropological approach to the image proposed by Hans Belting in his book 'An Anthropology of Images: Picture, Medium, Body', where he believes that the notion of the digital image and its visibility is very problematic because it can not refer to real reality. The uncertainty of the digital image also stems from a loss of connection between the image and medium, and the image and body. Belting raises a fundamental question: “Are we still talking about the image in such a way as if it was still possible to refer it to the subject?”
To answer this question, Belting looks for new models of digital image representation, which are based on its presentation. An example of this type of reflection are the considerations of Marita Sturken and Lisa Cartwright, who show the problem of representation in the era of the digital image in relation to the painting 'Roy II' (1994) by Chuck Close. Another plane for describing the phenomenon of digital image representation is the video artwork 'The Reflecting Pool' (1977–1979) by Bill Viola, which implies a dialectical model of the transformation of the screen into the monitor. This model has found its expression in numerous essays by Vilem Flusser, who says that the digital image has an epistemological and self-referential value, enforced by the apparatus, which it uses.

Sztuki w przestrzeni transmedialnej, red. Tomasz Załuski, Łódź: Akademia Sztuk Pięknych im. Władysława Strzemińskiego w Łodzi, s. 64–71, (ss. 8), 2010

Autorzy kina europejskiego VI, red. Alicja Helman, Andrzej Pitrus, Warszawa: Fundacja „Kino”, s. 526–557, (ss. 32), 2011

Abstract: In this essay refered to the provocative breaking of boundaries between the plot and th... more Abstract: In this essay refered to the provocative breaking of boundaries between the plot and the film document, showing the creative nature of the medium and the mechanisms of the ideological functioning of power exercised in the patriarchal system in Lars von Trier's films. The article is divided into three parts. The first of them discusses the film as a medium of creation on basis von Trier's films: 'Element of Crime' (1984), 'Epidemia' (1987) and 'Zentropa' (1991) which create the so-called "European trilogy". In these films von Trier creates artworks that show the strong influence of German expressionism. The most interesting issue, raised in the European trilogy, is the discussion about the creative possibilities of the film medium, which also seems important because of the way film is treated as a medium of reality. This conclusion is also evident in other von Trier's films: 'Medea' (1988), 'The Five Obstructions' (2005), 'The Boss of It All' (2006), and 'Antichrist' (2009), in which artist attempts to investigate the phenomenon of cinema as a medium of reality. In the second part of this article analyzed film as a medium of realism. In 'Breaking the Waves' (1996) and 'Dancer in the Dark' (2000) von Trier contrasts the illusion that Hollywood cinema feeds on, with always present reality. In the third path of this article is discussed the film as medium of idelogy. Von Trier's 'The Idiots' (1998) seems are constructing a discourse on establishing the principles of how the film medium works in an ideological and a social context. Whereas, 'Dogville' (2003) and 'Manderlay' (2005) are subordinating ideological assumptions to the structure of a film work is the basis for constructing an aesthetic convention, which determines the ways of reading this artworks.

‘Art Inquiry’. Recherches Sur Les Arts, Vol. XIV (XXIII): Performative Aspects of Art, ed. Grzegorz Sztabiński, Łódź: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe, p. 199–219, (pp. 21), 2012

Abstract: The starting point of the article is the assumption that the performative turn directs ... more Abstract: The starting point of the article is the assumption that the performative turn directs our attention to the expressive dimension of social activity and events which have the character of a process. If we transfer this assumption to the field of visual culture, then the object of our inquiry will no longer be images, but rather their perception by participants of visual events or the processes leading to those events. The performative aspects may be noticed in the definition of the "visual event" formulated by Nicholas Mirzoeff, who suggests the introduction of this term to replace "image." In accordance with this concept, the visual event constitutes the main aspect of the reception - the process of seeing, in which the user or the consumer seeks information, meaning or pleasure in a encounter with visual technology: from an oil paintings to television and the Internet.
The main thesis of the article is that the visual event is the product of a network which in turn conditions the actions of users communicating with one another. The performative aspects of Internet-mediated communication are revealed when Internet employ speech acts. Simultaneously with this process of "doing things with words," the interlocutors communicating with one another create a "community" which resembles 'communitas' (the term used by Victor Turner). We can view 'communitas' as a network "community", in which the Internet users interact with one another not only with the help of verbal messages, but also with other forms of internet visual communication (images derived from web-cameras, flash animations and photoblogs).
The presented issues find their reflection in the net artwork Listening Post (2003) by Marek Hansen and Ben Rubin, the "visualization" of the Internet-mediated communication of the users employing speech acts in chat rooms. The online verbal communication used in this work takes on the dimensions of a performance, which is the source of its visual aspects, and the speech acts employed by the Internet users function as "citations" within in the "iterability model" in the sense suggested by Jacques Derrida. The net artwork Bodies © INCorporated (1993) by Victoria Vesna is another example of performative aspects of Internet-mediated communication, which is described in the context of Judith Butler's theory of performativity. These examples present the ways of using performative aspects of communication Internet-mediated communication in net art.

Media, nowe media, czy post-media sztuki, red. Joanna Szczepanik, Kalina Kukiełko-Rogozińska, Aleksandra Łukasiewicz-Alcaraz, Łukasz Musielak, Szczecin: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Wydziału Malarstwa i Nowych Mediów Akademii Sztuki w Szczecinie, s. 22-28, (s. 12), 2019

The article is an attempt to present the trends in the development of visual culture studies, in ... more The article is an attempt to present the trends in the development of visual culture studies, in which the theoretical-methodological redirection derived from media studies emerges and consists in the constantly emphasized impact of reflection about new media on visual culture. In this case, the main research problem is the recognition and analysis of functioning image, visuality and seeing in the context of new media.
Reflecting in the field of visual culture studies selected examples of images made using new media: digital photography, digital animation, video games, the Internet and virtual reality, I turn to the texts of leading visual culture theorists by (W.J.T. Mitchell, Nicholas Mirzoeff) and media experts who working on visual culture by (Mark Poster, Arturo Escobar, Lisa Parks, Geoffrey Batchen). I try to systematize visual culture theorists depending on the type of reflection they present.
In addition, among the many trends of reflection on new media under the signum of Visual Culture Studies, we can distinguish the "archeology of new media", which includes studies by Lev Manovich, Lisa Cartwright, Anne Friedberg and Oliver Grau, already occupying a prominent place in anthologies of Visual Culture Studies. Among the aforementioned theoreticians, Cartwright occupies a special place, because she is the representative of a kind of reflection that can be classified both as part of Visual Culture Studies and reflection on new media.

Art Inquiry. Recherches Sur Les Arts, Vol. XIX (XXVIII): Avant-Garde and Avant-Gardes, eds. Grzegorz Sztabiński and Paulina Sztabińska, Łódź: Łódzkie Towarzystwo Naukowe, Akademia Sztuk Pięknych im. Władysława Strzemińskiego w Łodzi, Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Łódzkiego, p. 221–242, (pp. 22), 2017

Abstract: The article is an attempt to answer the question " Is the avant-garde intermedial? " In... more Abstract: The article is an attempt to answer the question " Is the avant-garde intermedial? " Inter-mediality is not a new concept in the field of art and media theory; it has a long history, going back to 1965, when Dick Higgins published his essay Intermedia. The artist then tried to put his ideas into words as an intermedial manifesto of the avant-garde. This paper characterizes its assumptions, defines the notion of " intermedium " , and determines the basis of intermedial strategies. In the subsequent section of the paper the author starts a discussion about media theory and mediality in avant-garde art, looking at intermedial relationships in many artworks, and drawing attention to the objectification of art, which has led to the development of intermedial ready-mades and poème-objets. An important aspect of the intermedial activity of the avant-garde artists seems to be also the tension between the opposing poles of " gesture aesthetics " and " discourse strategy ". In the subsequent sections of his discussion of intermedial practices of the avant-garde artists, the author refers to the allegorical strategy described in Peter Bürger's Theory of the Avant-Garde, whose aim is to work out the notion of a non-organic avant-garde work. It is characterized by montage, which can be compared to the process of integrating heterogeneous elements into a " new " whole, similar to the intermedium, which is a combination of different media. In this context montage may be understood as an intermedial process. The answer to the question " is the avant-garde intermedial? " is not obvious. The intermedial theories presented here seem to be anachronistic or even erroneous, because nobody understands intermediality currently like the avant-garde in the 1960s.

„Kultura i Historia", nr 30, s. 222–235, (ss. 12), http://www.kulturaihistoria.umcs.lublin.pl/wp-content/uploads/2018/10/KiH30-226-239.pdf, 2016

Abstract: The article shows contemporary cities as targets of terrorist attacks. In their urban a... more Abstract: The article shows contemporary cities as targets of terrorist attacks. In their urban area taking place visual events, which become meaningful in the context of concepts of Event-Cities, and of the city as a network. According Nicholas Mirzoeff the apogee of visual events makes the terrorist attack on the World Trade Center, which can be understood as a quote from sequences derived from disaster movies, and subject to the process of the aesthetisation of everyday life. Biopictures can be defined as living organisms, thematically referring to visual digital techniques, and a genetic engineering. W.J.T. Mitchell recalls to concepts of biopower and biopolitics by Michel Foucault and Giorgio Agamben. In this context I analyze examples of the biopictures in the urban area. The paper contains descriptions of a photo-collage 'From Dust to DNA' (2001) by Kevin Clarke and Mikey Flowers, which which already at the level of the topic itself reveals the remains of the 9/11 terrorist attack (DNA code floating in the air over Grand Zero) and refers to the "architectural cloning" of the twin towers of the World Trade Center and a mural painted on the overpass over the road to Tikrit during the invasion of Iraq made this massive graphically evident. This mural shows Saddam's army, emerging as a "stream of military might" from the doors of a mosque, which are looked similar like in the film 'Attack of the Clones' (2002) by George Lucas on "the clone army" emerged from the mother-ship.

Więcej niż obraz. Przestrzenie wizualne, red. Eugeniusz Wilk, Anna Nacher, Magdalena Zdrodowska, Ewelina Twardoch i Michał Gulik, Gdańsk: Wydawnictwo Naukowe Katedra, s. 31–46, (ss. 16), 2016

Abstract: This article is an attempt to present the interpretation of Michel Foucault's thought i... more Abstract: This article is an attempt to present the interpretation of Michel Foucault's thought in the field of Visual Culture Studies, which is revealed in three perspectives. The first of these is represented by Lisa Cartwright and Anne Friedberg, who refer Foucault's theories to analyze photography, panoramas and dioramas in the context of Panopticism. The second sphere of reflection using Foucault's theories is the concept of W. J. T. Mitchell's biopictures, in which they are a tool of bio-power/biopolitics. Whereas the third space of the discussion referring to Foucault's theories are the concepts of the visuality and countervisuality by Nicholas Mirzoeff. These projects function as a discourse in Foucault's sense, operating with mental images. Biopictures are a tool of bio-power and biopolitics, with which government control over populations takes place. Bio-power can be understood as a local "operator" of biopolitics, which is an essential element in the development of capitalism. In The his book "Right to Look", Mirzoeff constructs a postcolonial discourse on the subject "right to look", which can be treated as an introduction to the subject visuality. Mirzoeff notes that the word "visuality" refers to two concepts that are contradictory and opposing. In visual culture studies, visuality appeared in relationship to social fact, in contrast from physical aspects and processes of seeing.