Wish You Were Here
work-in-progress (to be completed in 2023)
Aneta was diagnosed with breast cancer at age thirty-six. The window of her house overlooks a walnut orchard slowly being turned into a new housing estate. The classic documentary format is expanded with VR technology, allowing a behind-the-scenes glimpse of the making of the experience, and breaking the "canonical" rules of VR. The creators don’t blur the film equipment in post-production, but challenge the illusion of intimate contact with the protagonist.
Michał Stankiewicz is a conceptual artist and an experimental theatre director. He likes to compare his own work to preparing a supper for friends or taking a bath together in an ice-cold river. Inspired by performance, postdramatic theatre, traditional rituals and magic as well as studies in phenomenology, cognitivism and neuroaesthetics. The idea underpinning his approach is to treat the bodies of the audience members as a medium for sensing reality. His aim is to minimise the means of expression so that art becomes almost transparent, unnoticeable, invisible. He has participated in Polish and foreign residencies and festivals, including the Theatre Olympics in India, AltoFest in Naples or Biennale College Cinema VR in Venice.