“Ancient life was all silence. In the nineteenth century, with the invention  of the machine, Noise was born,” – wrote Luigi Russolo in "The Art of Noises" in 1913. The famous manifesto  of the Italian Futurist painter initiated a trend of combining music with visual arts, technology, and culture. Its continuation can be observed in the works of the Dadaists, the Fluxus movement, and artists like Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik, whose sound-based works blurred the boundaries between music, performance, and visual arts. In the 1960s, American percussionist Max Neuhaus was the first to use sound to create site-specific installations. The subsequent development  of electronic and digital media expanded the possibilities of sound art.  Artists such as Bill Fontana and Rafael Lozano-Hemmer began using synthesizers, computers, and software to build complex sound environments.

 

Contemporary sound art often intersects with visual arts, performance, and media art. It continually pushes the boundaries of how we experience and understand sound in the context of art. The combination of these two forms of expression allows for the creation of unique, multidimensional experiences for audiences.  This year's Venice Biennale was largely dominated by sound exhibitions, such as John Akomfrah's exhibition representing Great Britain, Julien Creuzet's project  in the French pavilion, and the exhibition "Sailing Through Fire" by Tod Machover and Lee Bae. These presentations demonstrate how music and sound can influence the perception of visual artworks, creating a new quality  of reception.

 

In his exhibition in:human, Mariusz Szypura presents an installation where music plays the main role, and each piece is complemented by a visualization inspired by the specific composition. Entering the exhibition space, we are transported not only into two parallel musical worlds but also into the corresponding moving graphics. The first element of the composition consists of instrumental music  by Silver Rocket and the visuals created for it, which offer a postmodernist view  of human beings. In response, the artist prepared the second part, which looks at the same graphic material from the perspective of a machine.

 

Szypura takes on a new role, which is a consequence of his long-term involvement  in visual creation. As a versatile artist, Szypura uses his musical and graphic skills  to create multidimensional, interpenetrating works. The integration of music and visual art in the presented installation reflects a dynamic dialogue between tradition and modernity. The in:human exhibition juxtaposes what is human and analogous with what is digital and technological. The music installation is a kind  of exercise in preference or a psychological test, to which each visitor is subjected. The choice of one of the two sides of the exhibition reveals the visitor's level  of habituation to new technologies.

 

Will artificial intelligence dominate music? Does it have a chance to prevail over visual arts? Can sounds generated by AI become more popular than those created by analog artists? These are the questions Szypura poses in his music installation, provoking viewers to reflect on the future of art and technology.  

 

“All that seeks a spiritual, not a mechanical being will have to possess this clear-sighted character, intelligently motivated.” – José Ortega y Gasset  

 

Natalia Bradbury

Curator

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The unobvious futurist.

Inhuman ideas with a very human dimension.

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These are the first associations that come to my mind when I summarize my adventure with the music of Silver Rocket. It's still an abstract for me, despite having, for some time now, a very vivid alter ego in Mariusz Szypura, who played an extraordinary session in my Krakow apartment, discussing animatedly with the head of Blue Note during one of the listening sessions of cult albums I organized at the National Film Archive in Dolby Atmos technology, the most advanced sensory sound system available today.

 

So let's stick with Silver Rocket, a chameleon-like musical project, though sparkling with anchor points, from the perspective of time, a common, very characteristic thread. Gaudi on the EP "Electronics for Dogs," Lem's "Memoirs of a Space Traveller," and the incorrigible romantics: Nosowska, Rojek, Makowiecki, Dąbrowska, Masha Qrella - with a hard-to-capture common motif of longing for an important though sad truth on "Unhappy Songs." And finally, Tesla - one of the most beautiful human minds, remembered as a hero of a Silver Rocket concept album long before his rediscovery by contemporaries. If the famous Apple campaign - "Think Different" had a soundtrack, Steve Jobs would undoubtedly have found the address silverrocketmusic.com.

 

Now, when we know more about the where and why, let's meet Silver Rocket here and now. On the double album "Infinity Fidelity." In the era of "infinite sound fidelity," when Szypura's "infinity" replaces "high fidelity." In streaming times, when the physical medium loses its significance and fades - even Silver Rocket's cover is multisensory, and the most technologically advanced Dolby Atmos artist proposes to leap into listening ... yes, yes, to two records simultaneously! Hard to grasp? No one promised it would be easy.

 

And let's best experience it together, seeking individual human emotions in a collective experience. Let's meet at the Contemporary Art Center at the "in:human" installation. It will certainly be beautiful. And certainly in an unobvious way.

 

Even the iconic Discogs has a problem categorizing Szypura's Silver Rocket. Experimental? IDM? Post-rock? Don't even try. You can't put it in any box. It will escape anyway.

 

Piotr Metz

Music curator