Phobos ex Machina
EWA CIECHANOWSKA & ARTUR URBANSKI 2017
Phobos ex Machina is a project that focuses on manipulation, understood as the utilization of specific circumstances, selective choices, and transformation of facts to influence others' beliefs and behaviors. However, our goal was not to achieve a specific result or change the viewer's perspectives. It was also not aimed at explaining the phenomenon or presenting examples, witnesses, or victims of manipulation. The purpose of the Phobos ex Machina project was to make the viewer personally experience being manipulated.
In classical Greek mythology, Phobos is the god and personification of fear. The term "Deus ex Machina" originates from Greek tragedy, where a special machine would bring actors playing gods onto the stage. The god would appear unexpectedly and alter the course of events. Phrased figuratively, Deus ex Machina signifies sudden changes in situations that cannot be logically explained in terms of the events' development. Phobos ex Machina refers to the created fear that alters our perspectives and influences our actions.
What if we discover suspicious trees activity, secret communication, hidden weapons? What if we closely examine death statistics related to trees? Should we fear trees? Fear is a primal force that causes things, people, and phenomena that are indifferent to us to become hostile, and in our minds, we start perceiving them as potential threats. Photographs, videos, information, and drawings create a narrative platform to validate the thesis that trees are lurking for humans. Seemingly indifferent photos, when supplemented with selectively objective information, gain a context of death and tragedy. Who falls victim to toppling trees in the park? Are the people who can be killed by a falling trunk or branch to blame, or is it the tree, a living entity? Who is at fault - the tree that crushed the car or the wind caused by climate change due to emissions? The suggested answers may be deceptive.
PHOBOS EX MACHINA - EXHIBITIONS
2018 - Triennial of Photography Hamburg, [Enter] on a breaking point and necessity to change, Hamburg, Germany
2019 - Bienal '19 Fotografia do Porto, Adaptation and Transition, Porto, Portugal
2021 - Fotofestiwal, Ogrodowa 8 Gallery, Lodz, Poland
PHOBOS EX MACHINA - PUBLICATIONS
2018 - Triennial of Photography Hamburg Exhibition Catalogue
2022 - Archivo, Technology And Memory, Standing before a 'rabbit hole', Text by Bárbara Lissa, A dialogue with artist Artur Urbanski
2023 - Phobos ex machina - Book published by Lodz Film School Publishing