Maciej Czepiel

Antenna - 2018

I began to grow wary of the technologies surrounding us, not because they are new, but because they seem to remember too much. They present themselves as omniscient entities, promising to connect us all and carry knowledge endlessly across the planet. Over time, they’ve become more than tools; they’ve become keepers of memory, replacing the fragile, fragmented ways we once remembered for ourselves.

These objects have taken on an extraordinary presence. We treat them as a kind of spirit, not divine, but deeply embedded, that walks alongside us, recording, analyzing, remembering for us. They follow us into our homes, slip into our pockets, and saturate our environments with invisible waves. In this work, I attempt to give form to those waves, to represent the memory-cloud they generate, the atmosphere of knowing and forgetting they create.

My generation, and those to come, are part of this collective organis, this memory system that never stops accumulating. We are no longer separate from the net of stored thoughts. We are it. A shifting, digital consciousness, filled with everyone’s stories, but with the timelines all scrambled. We remember everything, yet understand less. Memory has become accumulation, not comprehension, and somewhere in that excess, something slips: interpretation, meaning, the emotional texture of remembering.

This overwhelming embrace of technology teeters on the edge of devotion. It has taken on the structure of belief. Where once there were crosses, now there are antennas, the symbols of a new omnipresence. But while faith once pointed to mystery, our new icons promise clarity, and deliver only a mirror, filled with the past, constantly rewriting itself.

Exhibition Chateau de Nyon - ”Dispute”, exhibition of the art collection of the City of Nyon - Nyon, Switzerland, Antenna, February 2024

Shortlist VFG Nachwuchsförderpreis 2021 - Antenna, Switzerland, June 2021

Exhibition KlanGalerie with PEP - Photographic Exploration Project, Connections - Berlin, Germany - Antenna, April 2021

Exhibition MBAL - Museum of Fine Arts - Le Printemps des Artistes - Le Locle, Switzerland - Antenna, March 2021

Solo exhibition Galerie Focale - Nyon, Switzerland, Antenna for «Prix Focale - Ville de Nyon 2020», November 2020

Prize Prix Focale - Ville de Nyon 2020 - Swiss documentary Photography Prize - Nyon, Switzerland - Antenna, October 2020

Shortlist Prix Photoforum Pasquart 2020 - Biel/Bienne, Switzerland - Antenna, August 2020

Shortlist VFG Nachwuchsförderpreis 2020 - Zürich, Switzerland - Antenna, June 2020

Digital Show Forum Transfrontalier - Autres Frontières, Antenna, June 2020

Solo exhibition Balkkon - Neuchâtel, Switzerland, Antenna, November 2019

Shortlist ReGeneration 4 - Musée de l’Elysée - Lausanne, Switzerland, Antenna, October 2019

Solo exhibition Standard/Deluxe - Lausanne, Switzerland, Antenna, May 2019