Trupia perwersyjność albo Akademia wszelkiej sciencyi pełna

Abstract

The article concerns a series of photographies It is hard to slay the dragon, but you must try (2016) by Irena Kalicka. Photos are based on The New Athens by a Polish Jesuitical priest Benedict Chmielowski. His work is defined to be the first Polish encyclopedia of the 18th century. Some excerpts from the Sarmatian compendium of the knowledge of that time are analyzed in the context of an essay by Maurice Blanchot The corpse similarity. In examining the timeliness of phantasms presented in New Athens, Kalicka deposited them in the contemporary sociopolitical of context, pointing to the tendency of the culture to mediations and various types of artificial constructs. In this way, the cycle becomes the manifestation of view, based on the oversight and aesthetization.