From the Ashes
‍ group exhibition at Zachęta National Gallery of Art, Warsaw, Poland
15.03 – 26.05.2024
‍artists: Hanna Antonsson, Sara Bezovšek, Justyna Górowska, Ewelina Jarosz, Marcin Janusz, Karolina Jarzębak, Ida Karkoszka, Agata Lankamer, Aleksandra Liput, Julia Lohmann, Antonina Nowacka, Pity (Kasia Piątkowska), Agata Polak, Aleksandra Wieliczko, Klara Woźniak, X-Philes (Rafał Domagała, Maja Gomulska, Bartosz Jakubowski, Gabriela Sułkowska), Xtreme Girl (Lena Peplińska, Laura Radzewicz), Ada Zielińska

curator: Michalina Sablik

link
Internet is All about Hormones. Between the Practices of Extreme Online Presence and Molecular “Lore”
by Kat Zavada

"Sara Bezovšek’s video SND, which presents potential apocalypse options, can be placed on the doomscrolling axis between dopamine and cortisol – excitement and curiosity that soon fuse into stress that overwhelms my body. The piece appears in two forms – one as a website, the other, presented at Zachęta, as a desktop recording of the www version. The versions differ in terms of user experience – while experiencing the web version we can scroll down, delve deeper into hyperlinks or close the tab altogether, but in the video version we are somehow forced to passively watch the apocalypse – we can only close our eyes or walk away. A collage of GIFs, video forms, hyperlinks and images, SND places us on the geopolitical map of the world along with all the known crises, social unrest and conspiracy theories – aliens, artificial intelligence taking over the world, cataclysms, a meteor hitting the Earth. This method is reminiscent of a depressive algorithm imposed on my feed – relentlessly extracting negative content in the form of funny memes. Bezovšek is like the Adam Curtis of digital art, in her case we binge-watch the apocalypse in an extremely dense, exhausting aesthetic, but we want more. When I was watching her work at Zachęta, a couple was sitting in front of me – she had her head on his shoulder – watching the apocalypse together. With or without lovers, we watch the end of the world live every day. And it is fine, I guess?"
Phoenixes and Cyborgs: Mapping Options in the Field of Art
by Ewelina Jarosz aka underwater_activist Manifesto of a nymph from the cyber_nymphs duo

"The monumental video SND (2021) by Sara Bezovšek reminds us that memes, gifs and internet videos have become elements of the age of wasteocene. The materials collected by the artist weave a post-apocalyptic reality into a stream of recurring nightmarish representations. The pessimistic content that scrolls across the smartphone screen does not motivate action, but rather imbues the body with a symbolic order of ecocide. The body of the doomscroller is reduced to the thumb, which serves as the tinder that ignites the doomscrolling."