Technospiritual visionary is a project created by Agata Konarska and Jakub Kosecki, within which two artistic people create both material and virtual experiences, based on the reinterpretation and recycling of archaic cultural contexts, searching for new applications for them. The sources of inspiration for the activities of this duo are the activities of the C.C.R.U collective, theory fiction and archaeology, and mythologies of ancient cultures.
The Book of the Dead: Virtual Gates - This is a debut project created on the basis of a theoretical/autotheoretical method, which involves the implementation of concepts invented in the distant past and their implementation in the present context. In this activity, based on Egyptological and archaeological sources, we look in particular at the concept of identity in ancient Egypt and try to compare it with today's state of affairs. The ancient Egyptian multi-layered soul is associated with the modern stratification of the posthuman person on the bureaucratic, personal, psychological and legal levels. We do not simply exist in society, but our existence takes place through a number of different documents, accounts, avatars, profiles. Similarly, in ancient Egypt, at the ontological level, we consist of nine parts, each of which has a different role, the name itself was also something that embodied social existence in Egypt at that time.
The installation features two main components: an animatronic priest acting as a projector, displaying a 360° video of the viewer's death and funeral, and a large-scale wall display for a gaming experience inspired by 'blind gates.' This cybernetic ritual, drawing from ancient Egyptian mythology, guides the player on an interactive journey to the afterlife. The immersive world combines modern technology metaphors with the Book of the Dead's symbolism, reflecting on our current social reality. Player data collection at the start shapes the narrative and gameplay. The project aims to fulfill the ancient dream of a social reality and embodies the prophetic vision of the 'Western land' in ancient civilizations.
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In Dialogue: Artist Talk with Agnese Baranova from RIXC The Center for New Media Culture
RIXC: Your project explores the intersection of spirituality and technology. What inspired you to blend these seemingly disparate fields?
Agata Konarska & Jakub Kosecki: This combination does not appear in our work for the first time. In our project, we understand spirituality broadly, as a dimension that includes socio-cultural institutions, religions and socialized intelligible aspects of life that can influence the formation of identity. Technology, on the other hand, is understood as the application of conceptual knowledge in order to achieve practical goals, such as language. With these assumptions in mind, we assume that identity has been technologically processed since the dawn of history. We also consider “history” to be a technology that aims to process identity.
In her artistic practice, Agata often examines the connections between the geographical sources of religion and contemporary cultural performance and technology. Her artistic activities take a form based on rituals, which is to lead the recipient out of the comfortable position of an observer, offering an immersive and interactive opportunity to experience the work. In his artistic and curatorial activities, Jakub is interested in the contemporary totemization of phenomena seemingly belonging to a highly technologically developed culture, such as: the personification of AI or other impersonal technical tools, material and virtual. Together in this project we take up motifs that we deal with separately, reinterpreting archaic cultural contexts, drawing in this case mainly from the culture of Ancient Egypt.
Among ancient cultures, one can find many examples in which a given religious system defined and shaped social life at the level of administrative structures. In Ancient Egypt, for example, the use of technologies, including engineering ones, or the use of writing was closely related to religious life. From a technical point of view, for us religions are software composed of various customs, narratives, and concepts. This software serves to orient oneself in the world, it contains methods of confronting what goes beyond measurable everyday life, explaining what was and what is to come, where what is comes from, what should and should not be done. To believe in a spiritual sense means for us to immerse ourselves in the immersiveness of a given language software. We are interested in creating our own software, but not as possessive as those still dominant in human cultures. We are looking for possibilities of gamification of religious experience, which will allow contact with its content without being appropriated by its assumptions.
RIXC: What role does technology play in your collaborative work? Are there specific tools or techniques that are central to your current project?
Agata Konarska & Jakub Kosecki: Our work consists of a physical and virtual part. To create our experience, we use the Unreal Engine gaming engine, we also work with programs such as Blender and Ableton. We use AI technology, a 3D scanner and publicly available resources on the Internet created by other creators. The entire virtual experience is based on the gaming experience scheme, the user explores the world we have created by entering it “deeper” to subsequent levels. The physical part of the installation, which is the frame for the game, the keyboard, the mouse and the sarcophagus-table. It will be made of polycaprolactone , an ecological plastic, a sculptural material, which we plan to cover with imitation sandstone and combine with other elements. In our aesthetic searches, we are interested in simulation and imitation. We sample contemporary examples of the apprehension of the exoticized and mythologized culture of Ancient Egypt, and examples of presentations of original fragments of texts from this culture. We are also interested in contemporary and historical examples of
representations of technology.
RIXC: As collaborators, how do you merge your individual artistic approaches and ideas? What strengths do each of you bring to this project?
Agata Konarska & Jakub Kosecki: We are both visual artists, Jakub is also involved in curating and creating music, in his artistic practice he focuses on creating objects and sculptures. Agata is a multimedia artist and focuses on creating immersive experiences. In the Techno Spiritual Visionary project we combine our creative approaches, so Jakub is involved in developing the script, creating music and creating sculptural elements made of polycaprolactone. Agata, meanwhile, is creating virtual reality, working with 3D models, scans, AI, and a gaming engine. We also plan to work together on the physical aspect of the installation.
RIXC: The project aims to fulfill the ancient dream of a social reality. How do you define this 'social reality' in the context of both ancient civilizations and today's digital world?
Agata Konarska & Jakub Kosecki: In the project, we try to think of social structure as a technological entity. The Western land, which is the ancient Egyptian idea of the afterlife, in our interpretation turns out to be a place identical to contemporary fantasies concerning social reality, such as: post revolutionary communist utopia, eternal economic growth, or infinite capitalism. In ancient Egyptian texts concerning the afterlife, there are ideas of social orders established
for eternity, such as infinite work, always bringing crops, or eternally ruling pharaohs. In our project, we try to create a narrative that creates bridges between these ideas and place the recipient in a situation that will ultimately resemble those they face. This is in contact with contemporary interfaces, which are strewn throughout the information society. In order to get to the afterlife, the user must complete scripts, convert from matter to virtual reality through a ritual that processes identity.