In her latest work, Edna Baud explores the tension between the departure from materiality and its inevitable return. Every day we seamlessly assume the identity of technology users, losing awareness of its material foundations. We place the highest value on light, invisible, instinctive solutions that act as extensions of our limbs. However, this apparent erosion of materiality does not mean its actual disappearance - we merely shift the burden of infrastructure far beyond our perception. Material difficulties go hand in hand with the development of technologies that appear ephemeral, but attempts to move away from materiality always involve its return. We see the machines behind everything, the complexity of the infrastructure that expands beyond the control of the individual. Baud places her work in this tension, portraying technology as an autonomous force and not just a tool in human hands. Coolness, monochrome and smooth surfaces dominate her works. The human appears sporadically, presented in the same visual language as the objects - frozen in process, equal to machines, tools and matter. Baud's works prompt the question: Why do we dismiss the fact of being a machine among machines?

Technology has taken over not only our physical tasks, but also our cognitive functions: memory, navigation, communication. Although this can be seen as a loss, it is rather an extension into new, non-human causality. Baud takes the metaphors of technology literally, depicting networks, machines, data storage systems in action and decay. He emphasises that what we consider an abstraction is in fact a physical mechanism. We are used to thinking of technology as a tool, but Baud suggests that it is no longer simply our creation - it is an interdependent entity, operating in a network of relationships. In a world of increasing economic and technological complexity, materiality eludes our perception. The language of magical metaphors describing technology masks its impact on our everyday life, relationships and politics. This is not about naïve role reversal, but about drawing attention to the fact that the balance has been irreversibly tipped and our relationships with non-human objects require the development of a new default, an awareness of our place in the web of factors, of how we influence and what influences us. In order to develop this awareness, it is necessary to leave the state of weightlessness offered by light, ephemeral solutions and experience the coldness of material reality.

About the artist

Edna Baud - visual and sound artist, graduate of cultural studies at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in Lublin. She is fascinated by the relationship between humans and machines, linguistics and the phenomenology of mystery. In her practice, she creates topographies of uncanny allegories, creating semiotically dense and evocative works. Her work has been presented in numerous exhibitions, including We Want All Life at the State Art Gallery in Sopot (2024), Queer Strategies in the space of Wołyńska 9 in Poznań (2023), and Arbeitsjournal at wanda gallery in Warsaw (2022). She lives and works in Gdańsk.

Edna Baud, Cold to the Touch
vernissage 16 May (Fri.) 18:00
on display until 28 June 2025.