Impossible Horizon

“The smaller we come to feel ourselves compared to the mountain, the nearer we come too participating in its greatness.” – Arne Næss, a Norwegian philosopher and creator of the “deep ecology” concept.

“Impossible Horizon” is a project by Ewa Doroszenko and Jacek Doroszenko, a Polish intermedia artist duo. The project consists of a series of photographs, unique photographic objects, a sound installation, and video works. The works were created between 2018 and 2024, as part of artistic residencies at The Island Resignified, Lefkada (Greece), Re_Act Contemporary Art Laboratory, Azores (Portugal), Klaipėda Culture Communication Center (Lithuania), Kunstnarhuset Messen, Ålvik (Norway), and in Warsaw, where the artists live and work. The works are only fragments of the Doroszenko duo’s wide-ranging and often long-term projects, offering insight into the artists’ working method. The formally diverse works are not only conceptually driven gestures but also technological experiments. The unifying theme is the disruption of landscape perception and the artists’ questions about the shifting boundaries between the domains of nature and technology.

Fascinated by modern information tools and their immense potential for shaping lifestyles, Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko attempt to capture the atmosphere of the physical-yet-virtual present. Looking at the textures of landscapes – both natural and simulated – the artists highlight the role of photography in navigating today’s world. Using Google Street View, popular computer games, travel guides, and other online sources, the artists examine how contemporary digital culture modifies the perception of natural landscapes.

To better understand the causes of the current environmental crisis, the artists look at the history of the Western tradition of landscape painting, in which the concept of natural landscape was defined according to the dominant worldview – as a detached element, external to the subject. In their works, Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko aim to question the separation between the subject – the observer – and the surrounding environment. The artists focus on the purely biological conditions of human existence and on activities shaped by the modern, technology-dominated environment. Ewa and Jacek Doroszenko direct attention primarily to the sound environment, the closest surrounding layer of reality, which is usually treated only as a background, a kind of supplement to what can be seen. The artists – residents of Warsaw, who regularly experience acoustic distortions and glitches, elements of urban „noise pollution” – emphasize in their projects the need to popularize „soundscape ecology,” the science of acoustic relations between living organisms, human and otherwise, and their environment. The Doroszenko duo focuses on the auditory exploration of places and regions, discovering spaces with unique auditory features, and presents works that subtly reveal the inseparable connection between humans and their natural surroundings.