BIENNALE ARCHITETTURA 2023

Stefania Olbrycht: From your perspective, how do you begin preparing for a project in the Polish Pavilion at the Biennale Architettura in Venice? Did Datament sprout in your head even before the competition was announced, or was it a response to the theme of this year’s edition?

Anna Barlik: I’ve thought about the Polish Pavilion for years. I spoke about it a lot with Jacek Sosnowski, a curator I’ve worked with for over a dozen years. Jacek said that I’m too young, but when, around June 2022, there was an open call and the Biennale theme was named Laboratory of the Future, I thought that was exactly what I wanted to make a sculpture about. As luck would have it, that same week I met with Marcin Strzała, an elementary-school friend I hadn’t seen for thirty years. It turned out he’s a lecturer at the Architecture Faculty [of the Warsaw University of Technology]. At one of our meetings he gave me Mario Carpo’s book The Second Digital Turn so I could better understand what he does. This is a work about how architecture is parameterised. I read it in two days and it was clear to me right away it would be my point of departure. I told Marcin I wanted to make a sculpture to fill the whole Polish Pavilion, and he would make an algorithm for and parameterise it.

So there’s the idea. What then? How did the final project take shape?

First I had a vision of a cloud of information you enter into, just like I went into Maria Carpo’s book: overwhelmed by information. Then came a long simplification process. At first, Marcin completely did not understand my vision, because my abstract approach did not quite overlap with his take on mathematics, coming at it as an architectural engineer.

I had to air out my mind and take a trip, as always, to the Baltic and the Kaszuby region. I walked a lot on the beach, rode my bike. When I came back, I’d made my decision: we’d do something like my diploma project, an architectural framework. The original project title was Ukła-dane, which combines ‘stacked’ and ‘data’. We needed an English title, of course, and so we came up with a neologism – Datament.

We met in September, just before the project was submitted. Then I drew up the floor plans of various flats, and Marcin turned them into 3D visualisations. The idea concerned a paradox: a medium-sized flat is never medium-sized. When it turned out we had won, Jacek said: ‘Now the work begins’. As curator, he had to tend to the narrative. I’m an artist, I have a vision, but from a curatorial perspective I trust Jacek.

What exactly was the division of labour in the project?

I knew how to make the visual presentation. We talked about overproduction of data. Jacek, Maja Sałek and Sonia Jaszczyńska started bringing in statistics on access to and production of information. This data proved to be highly interesting, but it needed to be organised. Then our researcher, Kinga Kotlińska, started making a huge Excel table. At this stage we turned the whole idea inside-out. We had to take a look at the guts and all three of us began working on the concept. This was mainly Jacek – he nailed down what we really wanted to say. Marcin handled the parameterisation, I took care of the visual side. An important component for me was the staircase. It turned out the architect had to employ an engineer as well, to calculate the carrying capacity of the whole installation.

What came out of the mysterious charts?

We saw that the world is clearly divided into four groups in terms of the data produced. The stair chart showed that quite clearly. There are highly developed countries that have information on everything, but also those that produce very little. We arbitrarily chose four countries, and with them, four spaces of flats to represent them: Hong Kong, Poland, Mexico and Malawi.

Malawi was the last country in which we could find any information on the average flat size – 25 square metres – and that information came from a book.

At the other end of the spectrum was Hong Kong, which was the place most saturated with information. Literally: if someone turns left, this information is captured by cameras on every street corner. All spheres of life are analysed, measured and parameterised. This is possible, in part, due to the large number of SIM cards there.

It suddenly struck us that more information has been produced over the past ten or fifteen years than in all previous times put together. This has come from such factors as Internet access, speed of data transmission and social media. We live in times of information overproduction, and this conclusion was our breakthrough moment. That is what our work is about.

How did you intend to bring this knowledge to the pavilion?

I wanted to show what I feel as an artist when I look at that chart – but as an architectural experience. I wanted to transfer the experience of information excess into the pavilion and let the viewer to enter the thickets of overlapping architecture, illustrating the data we managed to assemble.

Our installation shows how building laws differ from country to country. For instance, in Poland they are highly restrictive, which is why our architecture looks the way it does. Architects have no creative freedom because they have to work according to standards that set, for instance, the number of windows. This means we cease to think of a flat as a cosy living space, and we begin thinking like a machine attached to a system of information and algorithms, which is ultimately a machine for producing money. Human well-being is pushed way into the background.

You showed an example of a Polish flat. How does it compare to the other three?

It is architecturally interesting because Poland puts flats and homes into two separate categories, but because this division is rare worldwide, we’ve thrown houses and flats into one pile. The result is we have found that the average living space in Poland is eighty-two square metres, because people live in large homes and very small flats. It is hard to find an average flat of eighty-two metres in Poland. This is the first example of how the statistics obscure the actual state of things.

In France, in turn, there’s an even higher statistical average, because the empty châteaux outside of Paris are counted alongside the fifteen-metre garret apartments others have in the city.

How did you, as an artist, transpose this information into a sculpture?

My creative process is always the same: before I make a sculpture I do a few hundred or thousand drawings. Marcin and I drew the floor plan. He kept track of the parameterisation, so that no living space data overlapped. He used a tool for parameterisation; I admit the results from this program came as a surprise. For instance, I was sure that at some point in the installation the lines representing Poland and Mexico were so close they would touch. Yet the machine knew there was still half a centimetre to spare. As a human being, I feel with my heart and mind, but the machine feels the numbers: there’s half a centimetre – I’ll fit it in, you can weld it like that.

An important part of Datament is the colour. What was its selection process?

We originally chose quite different colours – navy blue, red, orange, turquoise – which I associated with charts and infographics. Then I turned to colours used by architects in programs like AutoCAD. Architects don’t see anything particularly pretty in this – they only see what will be made. Yet those graphs, contours and sharp digital colours have a very powerful impact on me.

I decided on four colours to create basic contrasts: yellow, blue, green and red. Of course, I was concerned it would look like a playground, and some people did indeed see it that way, but those weren’t my associations.

I’ve spent years working with a company that spray-paints all my sculptures. It has its own laboratory, technology and independent idea for producing paints that yield only 3 to 5% shine, which makes them satin/matte, and yet fairly durable. The famous Vanta Black has the structure of a sponge, it absorbs light through something like ducts. If you touch it, you can easily destroy its structure and thus ruin its properties. It is not a hardy material, and for us durability was a basic requirement.

The colours you ultimately chose are your own blend?

Yes, and the process of reaching the final colour was quite fascinating. Ula works in the paint company laboratory, and I corresponded with her at all hours of the day and night about the shades I was after. I wrote, for instance, that I found a jumper in a shop that was a particular shade of green. I had to make sure that Ula, like myself, had an iPhone and we were seeing the same colour on the screen. I told her, for example, I wanted to add a bit of green, but more shading towards cornflower blue than yellow. We began chatting about colours in a very sensory way: ‘sour’, ‘matte’, ‘deep’, ‘bland’. That took two months. Everyone was growing impatient, because we didn’t know how the colours would really turn out. At last I brought in the samples and said I’d ordered 30 kilograms of each. Everyone was delighted by the end product, of course, because it’s a highly unique and original paint, but I let absolutely no one interfere with the process.

You observed people interacting with and reacting to your sculpture. What did you see in their movements?

I travelled often to Venice and spent a lot of time there. The fact that we did our assembly a month before the Biennale opened was a huge convenience. It was a privilege that everything was hung, wrapped up and clean, so I could enjoy walking through the other pavilions, meeting people, but also watching how other people still in a frenzy of setting things up were experiencing my sculpture. They came to us and, right away – when there were just all the national pavilion teams – our idea caused a stir, because it could be taken on a number of levels.

I don’t want my work to be exclusive – just for people who go deep into the whole context and content of a piece. I also want people who just enter for a moment to have the opportunity to experience it. At the Biennale, I know sometimes one peeks into a pavilion, sweeps it with their gaze, and moves on. Our project is built to rouse interest and invite you in – into a labyrinth, as it were. The stairs were quite important; everyone would intuitively want to climb them to get another perspective. We also created a few points where you could enter and exit the installation. These strategies kept the viewer in the pavilion longer.

And every minute you’re there, the experience grows.

Exactly. That was on purpose. At first I wanted to do two staircases, to make the movement more circular, but unfortunately we were limited by the whole structure’s carrying capacity, which is why I limited it to one staircase.

It’s fantastic that our work was seen by various people, of all different nationalities, exactly as the research on information saturation showed. The viewers either agreed with the statistics or didn’t. Sometimes they said: ‘It must be as the data says – data doesn’t lie’. I say: ‘Sometimes it can.’ Some asked: ‘Where did you get this, where’s the information from?’ Only when they discovered how the algorithm was created, how the machine processed the information and standardised the living space did I see a moment of realisation, like a light bulb coming on.

On the other hand, apart from the aspect tied to information analysis, the project was colourful and attractive. The kids had a great time. One woman came up to me and said: ‘I’m so happy your sculpture is here, because I don’t know what to do with the kids.’

Through our installation, many people saw we are largely slaves to information and we seldom question it. The very idea of the parameterisation of architecture, its meaning and consequences, was an important topic of discussion. There were also people who said the sculpture overstimulated them. That led to conversations about how I, too, feel overstimulated. And that is what this piece is about.

Overstimulation might be one of our civilisation’s main problems. How do you work in this reality?

Above all, I’ve discovered I like to work when there’s lots going on and plenty of stimulants, because then I function better. This year I had my middle child diagnosed with something like ADHD. It looks as though I might have it as well. My psychologist says that if a person is stimulated to a certain level they function well intellectually. Suddenly it turns out many people have this condition, or at least many with whom I’m in contact. Working on Datament that’s just how I felt: I was so stimulated by information that I was working on very high rotation’s.

How have Datament and working on the pavilion affected you as an artist?

It has definitely taught me to look at the information and data I receive from all angles. It has also given me experience, so that I know I’m capable of doing a project as large as the Polish Pavilion for the Venice Biennale. I challenged myself, and I found that in a situation with tight deadlines, taut nerves, conflicts, excitement, I have the mental resilience to carry out such a large task.

This experience taught me to have courage. But the pavilion is difficult, because it is easy to end up as a one-piece artist. I didn’t want that, which is why, after the Zachęta exhibition, I scrapped the sculpture and didn’t want to show it any more, though at one point we had offers to show it elsewhere. I decided that lots of people really had seen it and it was, in a sense, a finished experience.

I have lots of other ideas for larger and smaller projects. After Datament I made the Stacking Object series, illustrating how the tasks and duties I take on every day stack up. I’m a single mother of three sons, aged six, ten and eleven. I’m also an academic lecturer, I’ve begun my post-doctorate this year, I’ve renovated my house, sold my flat, my car broke down, I have to buy a new one and so on. It all adds up to a situation that hovers on the verge of toppling over, and at the very top – surprise, surprise – there’s a cherry, like on a cake.

And what do you think of the Venice Biennale format? Is there something you would change?

We’re not talking about any old biennial that just popped up now – because nowadays every city needs its own biennial – this is the Venice Biennale. Of course, the Art Biennale has a longer history than the Architecture Biennale, but it’s still one of the world’s most important events of its kind.

It’s marvellous that the tradition is still going, but I do have a few reflections from an artist’s point of view. For instance, when I sit on Via Garibaldi, in the world’s most expensive place, sipping drinks with a group of wealthy, privileged people who work as architects, and they talk about how to save the poor people of the world – I feel a depressing dissonance. It was definitely a mistake to take Africa – around which the Biennale theme, Laboratory of the Future, was built – as a single unit, given it is such a culturally and economically diverse continent.

From the perspective of this little heritage village we call Europe, we have the time and money for these whimsical dreams, but I’m far from that approach. That’s because I’m interested in the world, and if I wasn’t, I wouldn’t be an artist. I’m not going to tell you what the world is like, because I don’t feel like anyone is equipped to do that. I can philosophize on the subject, say what I think, but those judgments are always open to change.

The Biennale is the establishment, which will carry on functioning as it has. I’m taking away some valuable observations and experiences, and I enjoy going every year. The projects I remember best, at both the Art and Architecture Biennales, are the brave ones. I feel like this is a space where there is room for courage. The Architecture Biennale has a down side, unfortunately; sometimes it is exhibitions of infographics and mock-ups, whereas architecture really should be an experience. If we’re talking about water, let’s get ourselves wet; if the topic is air, let’s install vents so that no one can enter the pavilion, and thus demonstrate what air flow is. That is what experience means. I think the Biennale is a place where you can do courageous things.

And that’s your appeal – don’t be afraid to be brave.

Absolutely.

Financed by European Union NextGenerationEU