Mediating Poles: Media Art and Critical Experiments of the Polish Site, 2004–2009

In Mediating Poles I map out the role of art and artists following Poland’s integration into the European Union in 2004 as representative of the tensions between global cosmopolitanism and national self-enfranchisement. This work is a reflection on a key moment in Europe’s political and cultural history, bringing together media studies, art history and criticism, political theory and cultural studies to consider how the epistemological and phenomenological shifts that are concomitant with an ephemeral materiality help us imagine new or alternate political realities. Situated within global developments of the field of media art, Mediating Poles is anchored in a Polish archaeology going back to the 1920s. This expansion of the history of media art to include Eastern European heritage articulates a site-specific context to what is often considered to be an art practice that is unrooted, placeless, virtual and groundless. Supported by close readings of specific works by artists emerging and established, I argue that media art provides a unique opportunity for creating radical articulations for community and site, while still claiming a space in a global or transnational imaginary.

Aleksandra Polisiewicz, from the cycle Wartopia 1. Berlin 518, Moskwa: 1122, 1 m × 1 m, 2006. (Courtesy of Le Guern Gallery and the artist.)