ode to youth

Attempting to refer to the idea of youth, I thought it would be good to recollect Ode to Youth and try to recite it again... only I did it backwards. I recorded this clumsy recitation and then digitally played it backwards. It caused the effect of an incredible agony and misunderstanding the words of the recited ode. 16 digital, audio-video generators, constructed diligently with all the consequences of a modern installation, (video image, cables, DVD players, a general mess of “new media”) continuously recites – or rather attempts to recite the text, which the stupid machine does not understand at all (why should it?). Listening to these 16 incessantly repeating voices I sometimes get the impression of either of a mantra or a prayer prattled without understanding...

"(...) another Andrzej Wasilewski’s installation Ode to Youth. The other one was built of 16 little monitors, on which were projected graphs resembling in their form graphs appearing on monitors of life-sustaining ICU. From time to time, there was a buzzing coming from the loudspeakers placed next to the monitors, closely resembling human, albeit slightly mumbling, voice. The whole machinery was connected to two screens. On them there was to be found the solution to the puzzle: the projected (once forwards, once backwards) text of Mickiewicz’s Ode to Youth, a synonym of the power struggle between generations. (...) The artist's subjects to analysis also the category of youth stressed in the title of the work and the exhibition, cultural connotations, which it unavoidably revokes: a generational change and evolution. Youth is presented here by means of the machinery as barely alive and artificially bolstered."

Ewa Małgorzata Tatar

2008 - 5th Triennale of Youth, Center of Polish Sculpture, Oronsko (PL)