Alicja Symela

author biographical note degree piece

Artificial Man is an experiment designed to investigate what emotions can be aroused by a physical interference with a dead object resembling a human being. Whether such an act can seem brutal? Or can it reveal the mechanisms governing representation and its almost magical effect on us? Of particular interest was the process of developing the sculpture and then “destroying” it, sacryfying in order to gain a new quality. The moment of destruction has become the beginning. The figure transforms into “something else”, it gets “another life”. In my work I was loosely inspired by a motif of an artificial man, present throughout mainstream film, literature and popular culture.

(born 1986)

Studied at the Institute of Polish Culture, University of Warsaw (2006-2013), and at the Faculty of Sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw (2008-2015); Annex to the degree piece prepared at the Faculty of Design of the Academy. Her artistic activity involves use of such media as traditional sculpture, digital photography, video, 3D. She often combines them in one work as a collage, giving the work an interesting polyphony. For several years she created prototypes of collectible dolls for the brand Marti Presents Dolls. Her projects reside at an intersection of sculpture and design.