artUNBOXING
(Filip Ignatowicz, 2014-20, video performance – artistic action on YouTube)
artUNBOXING is a video performance tailor-made for YouTube and inspired by the online video genre of unboxing. The premise of these videos is the unpacking of products – usually well-known and expensive ones – and then reviewing their appearance and functionalities.
Instead of objects typical for unboxing, I open the artworks I purchased, objects signed by artists or exhibition-related merchandise. At the same time, I commit a performative takeover. The initial unwrapping of the package, checking its contents, and testing the purchased object represents the essence of my online performative act. This action forms part of my practice of exploring the boundaries between art and product, consumption and culture.
The artUNBOXING concept was devised in 2014, and some episodes were presented as part of my PhD thesis presentation at the Faculty of Painting of the Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts in 2018. The project has recently been made public via a dedicated YouTube channel as part of my solo exhibition at ŁAŹNIA Centre for Contemporary Art in Gdańsk.
Filip Ignatowicz
Born in 1990 in Gdańsk, where he graduated from the Faculty of Painting of the Academy of Fine Arts. His graduation work “Production, commercialisation and hype – or about consuming art” earned him a degree from the studios of Prof. Henryk Cześnik, Prof. Witosław Czerwonka and Prof. Robert Florczak, and an award from the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage at the Best Fine Arts Graduation Works exhibition. Ignatowicz has also completed directing studies at the Gdynia Film School. New Bronx, his debut feature short about youth from Gdańsk’s Nowy Port neighbourhood, made under the supervision of Prof. Robert Gliński – was shown at over 40 international film festivals worldwide and received 7 film awards.
Since 2017, Ignatowicz has lectured at the Faculty of Painting of the Gdańsk Academy of Fine Arts. In 2018, he earned a PhD with his dissertation “Art Fair. The consumer versus culture – about fake, lovebranding and self-commodification”.
His latest works mostly look at the life of people functioning within the consumer reality. Although his art is rooted in painting, it is it in fact multidisciplinary: Ignatowicz creates video art, objects, installations, performance art and public space interventions. He also works with film, photography, art and research projects as well as video set design and online performance. He is the author of two developing projects: FIGNACY&co and artUNBOXING.
Project presented during the Digital Cultures Festival:
artUNBOXING
