The Hoarder-Gatherer

Tomasz Skibicki received a contribution to develop The Hoarder-Gatherer: a workflow that is at once research-based and materially dedicated. In this framework, he produces installations, objects, essays, images, and films based on what he likes to call “firsthand encounters with second-hand stories”. This upcoming project arises from his recent fascination for how humans perceive puppets, and what our interaction with these inanimate objects reveals about our cognitive functioning.

In contemporary culture, puppets have become central figures in a tech-driven, cybernetic world, embodying both futuristic visions and alarming fantasies. The rapid advancements in artificial intelligence have given rise to the philosophical and ethical discourse around puppetry, blurring the lines between humans and the artificial, manipulator and manipulated, and subject and object. Thus, a ‘puppet’ is not only a formal creation, theatre language, or an art object: it can also be understood as an allegorical figure which, in almost all cultures, embodies questions on the origin of life and death, on the relation between the visible and the invisible, between stage and audience, and the relation between storytelling and imagination.

The artistic practice of Tomasz deals with a distinct range of systems: from nightclubs and forests to image compression algorithms and hauntology. Amongst these thematic vocabularies are legible paradoxes — notably, the contrast between the technology of popular culture and the (super-)natural world. It is through this collaging and colliding of contrasts that his artistic signature is formulated.