{"id":7531,"date":"2023-01-10T14:53:02","date_gmt":"2023-01-10T13:53:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/?p=7531"},"modified":"2025-07-14T11:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-07-14T09:12:06","slug":"save-as-jaroslaw-potoczny","status":"publish","type":"wystawa","link":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wystawa\/save-as-jaroslaw-potoczny","title":{"rendered":"Save As.<\/b> Jaros\u0142aw Potoczny"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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26 Jan\u20134 Mar 2023
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It\u2019s as if we have finally achieved the ability to make such virtual realities materialize, and in so doing, to reduce our lives, too, to a kind of video game, as we negotiate the various mazeways of the new bureaucracies<\/em>.
David Graeber<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Man does not suffer so much from poverty today as he suffers from the fact that he has become a cog in a large machine, an automaton, that his life has become empty and lost its meaning.<\/em>
Erich Fromm<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In his essay Rules for the Human Zoo<\/em>,[1]<\/sup> Peter Sloterdijk outlined a vision of society as a combination of a zoological garden and a theme park. He argued that humans, wherever they appear, inevitably produce a \u201cpark effect\u201d around themselves. City parks, national parks, provincial or state parks, eco-parks \u2013 they are all testimony to the intransigent human tendency to regulate, subjugate and normalise the environment along with all its inhabitants. Humanity appears to Sloterdijk as a \u201cbreeding\u201d force, with the human community unevenly divided into \u201cbreeders\u201d fulfilling their \u201ctaming-training-educational\u201d tasks and the rest \u2013 submitted, often unconsciously, to formative processes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Jaros\u0142aw Potoczny\u2019s works, especially his most recent installations, manifest a peculiar affinity with Sloterdijk\u2019s notion of society as a field integrated by a \u201czoo-political\u201d apparatus of pressure. The artist in his practice often makes references to artefacts known from the history of culture and uses symbols that are so deeply ingrained in our consciousness that they might even seem to have been overexploited. In Potoczny\u2019s art, these cultural references undergo a peculiar degradation \u2013 religious emblems are transformed into office lighting and colourful LEDs, Hellenistic vase paintings becomes stickers on industrial barrels, national emblems turn into minced meat, while famous masterpieces \u2013 into faux fur and stamps. The current exhibition chiefly consists of plastic, LED fluorescent lights, carpet, silicone, cables, neon and self-adhesive film \u2013 materials known from office buildings, banks, gyms or shopping malls, i.e. the main embassies of the late capitalist \u201csociety of achievement\u201d (to which we shall return later in the text). The exhibition space is dominated by the figure of the \u201cclassical\u201d Cretan labyrinth, albeit with walls delineated by electric fence, which can be inscribed, to borrow Sloterdijk\u2019s phrase, in \u201cEurope\u2019s pastoral folklore.\u201d It becomes a sarcastic metaphor for social life seen as a system of \u201cbreeding\u201d based on the restricting and formatting of citizens.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We are exposed to the violence of public rules from an early age. As Miko\u0142aj Marcela argues in his books, the most common educational methods used in kindergartens and schools are rooted in the behaviourist study of animals (typically kept in cages), with the underlying belief that \u201cchange in human behaviour can be planned, induced and internalised by consistently applying a properly designed sequence of reinforcing stimuli.\u201d[2] <\/sup>In addition to teaching based largely on the \u201capplication of patterns and schemes, following specific rules and thinking in accordance with a specific answer key,\u201d educational institutions also condition students to work according to an imposed mode \u2013 humbly sitting behind a desk.[3]<\/sup> In this way, we are trained to become a \u201cproductive\u201d part of modern society, which Byung-Chul Han describes as a \u201csociety of achievement.\u201d The Korean philosopher points out that Foucaultian discipline and punishment have now been replaced by an ethos of achievement, self-actualisation and productivity. As self-starting entrepreneurs, in order to compete more effectively, we optimise ourselves to death. We become our own project<\/em>: \u201cHowever, the change from subject to project does not make power or violence disappear. Auto-compulsion, which presents itself as freedom, takes the place of allo-compulsion. This development is closely connected to capitalist relations of production. Starting at a certain level of production, auto-exploitation is significantly more efficient and brings much greater returns than allo-exploitation, because the feeling of freedom attends it.\u201d[4]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Social life is increasingly dominated by the dictate of the market, while power is dissolving in a neo-liberal system operating through rights (and under the banners of egalitarianism and tolerance), which, under the guise of various freedoms, constitute an instrument of control present at virtually all levels of life. As Saul Newman succinctly puts it, \u201cWe are inserted into an apparatus which seeks to capture every facet of existence and desire within its circuits\u2014 of consumption, communication, spectacle, hyper-visibility, idiotic enjoyment, endless and meaningless work, debt and constant insecurity Spaces are provided for individual differences and tastes, but only through their commodification, thus producing unparalleled conformity. This regime no longer cares what we think \u2013 we are granted a certain freedom of thought \u2013 as long as we obey through our everyday practices, behaviours and rituals.\u201d[5]<\/sup> We are subjected to ubiquitous surveillance; Foucault\u2019s panopticism is reborn in a much more powerful and efficient digital form of the aperspectival panopticon \u2013 no longer having a centre, but co-created, as a network, by everyone and subject to surveillance from all sides.[6]<\/sup> Of course, in the digital panopticon we also \u201cexpose\u201d ourselves with a sense of freedom.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jaros\u0142aw Potoczny, Save as jpeg,<\/em> instalation project<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Save As<\/em> exhibition is a bitter reflection of these observations. It paints a not-so-optimistic picture of entanglement in a camouflaged system of constraints that shapes our lives through educational, legal, political, economic and cultural mechanisms. There is no alternative here, only a path marked out by the maze<\/em> engulfing the gallery, through which, in the name of our safety (as well as well-being and freedom), we are kindly guided by an electric fence. The maze<\/em> seems to stand for all the meaningless complexities of any bureaucracy, which disciplines bodies and minds through administrative means. As David Graeber argues, \u201clike a maze, paperwork doesn\u2019t really open on anything outside itself.\u201d[7]<\/sup> The cross from the Save as JPEG<\/em> installation does not herald salvation; instead, it signifies a repeated attempt to format the individual. It is a symbol of the replacement of communal relations with the hierarchical structure of institutions. Standardisation is the new ideological gospel, establishing dogmas, distributing authority and ranks. Images depicting the blueprints of the V2 flight programmer \u2013 the first-ever ballistic missile \u2013 alongside the characteristic outline of the pumpjack, used in oil extraction, are ironically exclusive objects whose faux fur and neon lights show the tools of exploitation of human life and environmental resources, telling a further story of social dissymmetry, distribution of power and wealth, and consequently \u2013 of the process of taming, fencing off and appropriation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It seems impossible to break free from Sloterdijk\u2019s \u201chuman zoo\u201d \u2013 the social park whose rules define the world order, making the prevailing forms of economic and political power appear best or even necessary \u2013 after all, we are governed in the name of our freedom. In spite of these rather gloomy reflections, Logic<\/em> appears \u2013 an installation that may be a kind of escapist summersault and at the same time a fig given to the prevailing clich\u00e9s. Contrary to the title, the levitating scooter prompts us to reject patterns certified as \u201clogical\u201d \u2013 in the situation of being entangled in the dominant, ostensibly universal discourse, the only sensible thing to do is to distance oneself from it and exercise indifference. Refusing to participate in a game whose rules we have not set and trying to find a new perspective by freeing the imagination is perhaps the only way to develop a \u201cnew freedom,\u201d one form of which may be, to quote Sloterdijk again, \u201cecstatic uselessness towards everything.\u201d[8]<\/sup><\/p>\n\n\n\n

[1] P. Sloterdijk, \u201cRules for the Human Zoo: A Response to the Letter on Humanism.\u201d Environment and Planning D: Society and Space<\/em> 27 (2009): 12-28.
[2] M. Marcela, Patopos\u0142usze\u0144stwo. Jak szko\u0142a, rodzina i pa\u0144stwo ucz\u0105 nas bezradno\u015bci i co z tym zrobi\u0107?<\/em>, Krakow, 2022, p. 17.
[3] Ibid., pp. 48 and 303.
[4] B.-Ch. Han, The Burnout Society<\/em>, transl. Erik Butler, Stanford, 2015, pp. 46-47.
[5] S. Newman, Postanarchism<\/em>, Cambridge, 2016, p. 33.
[6] Cf. B.-Ch. Han, op. cit.
[7] D. Graeber, The Utopia of Rules. On Technology, Stupidity and the Secret Joys of Bureaucracy<\/em>, New York, 2015.
[8] P. Sloterdijk, Stress and Freedom<\/em>, Cambridge, 2015.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jaros\u0142aw Potoczny <\/strong>(b. 1962) – has graduated from the E. Geppert Academy of Art and Design in Wroc\u0142aw (diploma in Prof. Konrad Jarodzki\u2019s studio). His practice is based on painting, objects and installations. He uses his own formal language, reaching for materials from the surrounding \u201ctechnical civilisation\u201d \u2013 electrical elements, cables, plastics, neon signs, fragments of car components.He is interested in contemporary technology, pop culture and sociopolitical mechanisms. He lives and works in Wroc\u0142aw.<\/p>\n<\/div><\/div>\n\n\n\n

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Exhibition guide<\/a><\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n
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Exhibition organiser: <\/strong>66P Subjective Institution of Culture
Production: <\/strong>the 66P team<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Jaros\u0142aw Potoczny\u2019s exhibition Save As paints a not-so-optimistic picture of entanglement in a camouflaged system of constraints that shapes our lives through educational, legal, political, economic and cultural mechanisms. There is no alternative here, only a path marked out by the maze engulfing the gallery, through which, in the name of our safety (as well as well-being and freedom), we are kindly guided by an electric fence. The maze seems to be a sarcastic metaphor of social life seen as a field integrated by a \u201czoo-political\u201d apparatus of pressure.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":7524,"parent":0,"menu_order":82,"template":"","categories":[28],"informacja":[],"termin":[142],"class_list":["post-7531","wystawa","type-wystawa","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-exhibitions","termin-archival","description-off"],"uagb_featured_image_src":{"full":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig.png",2250,2250,false],"thumbnail":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-500x500.png",500,500,true],"medium":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-300x300.png",300,300,true],"medium_large":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-768x768.png",768,768,true],"large":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-1024x1024.png",1024,1024,true],"1536x1536":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-1536x1536.png",1536,1536,true],"2048x2048":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-2048x2048.png",2048,2048,true],"qi_addons_for_elementor_image_size_square":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig.png",650,650,false],"qi_addons_for_elementor_image_size_landscape":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig.png",650,650,false],"qi_addons_for_elementor_image_size_portrait":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig.png",650,650,false],"qi_addons_for_elementor_image_size_huge-square":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig.png",1300,1300,false],"woocommerce_thumbnail":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-760x760.png",760,760,true],"woocommerce_single":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-655x655.png",655,655,true],"woocommerce_gallery_thumbnail":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-200x200.png",200,200,true],"wpsso-schema-1x1":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-1200x1200.png",1200,1200,true],"wpsso-schema-4x3":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-1200x900.png",1200,900,true],"wpsso-schema-16x9":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-1200x675.png",1200,675,true],"wpsso-thumbnail":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-1200x628.png",1200,628,true],"wpsso-opengraph":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-1200x628.png",1200,628,true],"wpsso-tc-summary":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig.png",2250,2250,false],"wpsso-tc-lrgimg":["https:\/\/66p.pl\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/01\/66p_save_as_plakat_wybrany_kwadrat_ig-1200x628.png",1200,628,true]},"uagb_author_info":{"display_name":"iovo","author_link":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/author"},"uagb_comment_info":0,"uagb_excerpt":"Jaros\u0142aw Potoczny\u2019s exhibition Save As paints a not-so-optimistic picture of entanglement in a camouflaged system of constraints that shapes our lives through educational, legal, political, economic and cultural mechanisms. There is no alternative here, only a path marked out by the maze engulfing the gallery, through which, in the name of our safety (as well…","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wystawa\/7531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wystawa"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/wystawa"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wystawa\/7531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25181,"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/wystawa\/7531\/revisions\/25181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7524"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7531"},{"taxonomy":"informacja","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/informacja?post=7531"},{"taxonomy":"termin","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/66p.pl\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/termin?post=7531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}