Consensual Hallucination - Karolina Ptaszkowska

About

Karolina Ptaszkowska's work weaves a literal and metaphorical tapestry of layers, offering fragmented bodies and organic forms that morph into architectural motifs, patterns, and radiant sources of light. These elements function as conduits for interconnectedness—between humans, machines, space, and time. Ptaszkowska’s practice constructs a body that not only embodies structural design but also serves as a support system for events, both micro and macro. Her pieces delve into the space where the visible and invisible converge—suggesting that reality is shaped by the dynamic exchange between tangible forces and unseen, spiritual energies.

Ptaszkowska’s work draws from the idea of cyberspace as a “consensual hallucination,” a concept introduced by William Gibson in Neuromancer, where cyberspace is a graphic representation of data abstracted from the human system. Much like cyberspace, Ptaszkowska envisions our interactions with objects, forces, and energies as a kind of disembodiment, a constant ebb and flow of exchange between us and the world around us. Nature, in this context, becomes the holding space—the wall that contains humanity, while the energies that circulate within it, bound by forces and bonds, create new realities and structures.

In her works, Ptaszkowska invites the viewer to reconsider what is real, and how reality, much like energy, is fluid—constantly shifting, refracting, and reshaping in a world where these bonds are more important than matter, and all things are interconnected.