Dirty Blood 🩸🏭🩸

Dirty Blood, de-risking

The ‘blood’ mentioned in the title refers to our primary source of power, namely oil, and its role in international circulation. It is ‘dirty’ because its use has turned against humanity and nature. Oil drives civilization forward while simultaneously causing degradation of the environment. The history of oil is a tale of geopolitical conflicts, civilizational and technological development, fierce competition, dominance and global warming, as well as the degradation of the natural environment. Oil can be a blessing but has also become a cause for anxiety. Due to its great significance, economists have recognized that national economies may be suffering from oil addiction.

The protagonist of Barbara Gryka’s exhibition is petroleum – the ‘dirty blood’ that flows in the veins of the post-natural organism that is the world of the Anthropocene era.

Oil is energy and life. It is also death, manifested in the form of environmental pollution, resource wars and the spectre of climate disaster. Oil is the gold of modernity – though black and extracted from the hellish depths of the earth.

It is impossible to talk about it without talking about the modern world – and vice versa. The story created by Barbara Gryka takes the form of a post-Internet opera presented as a multimedia installation.

At the centre of the narrative is the figure of Ignacy Łukasiewicz, a Pole with Armenian roots who, in the 19th century, becomes the starting point of the epic tale of oil-fuelled civilisation that continues to this day. It was Łukasiewicz, a romantic and a patriot living in partitioned Poland, who was the first to recognise the unlimited potential of this raw material, develop the pioneering method of its refining and invent the paraffin lamp, which shed new light on progress. The first crude oil Eldorado was created on Polish soil, near Krosno, where Łukasiewicz began to exploit its reservoirs.

In Barbara Gryka’s narrative, the historical figure is transformed into a mythological one: Łukasiewicz is Prometheus. The artist follows the temper of the inventor and entrepreneur who made his fortune on oil but was also idealistic and philanthropic. Łukasiewicz saw his role in society precisely in Promethean terms. He believed that his discoveries would change the world for the better and push it towards progress. He was not wrong, although there is no doubt that the world built on the foundation of his inventions is radically different from the utopian vision he imagined.

Zeus also makes an appearance in “Dirty Blood”. In ancient beliefs, the god cruelly punished Prometheus for trying to give divine powers to humans. In Barbara Gryka’s work, Zeus takes the form of Rockefeller – a figure symbolising the power of money and the principle of greed. In this version of the mythological story, Prometheus is an employee of a petrol station where the billionaire comes to refuel his car.

Barbara Gryka uses computer animation, artificial intelligence-generated imagery and edited material from the Internet to create the multi-dimensional narrative that reflects the contradictory image of the contemporary world through oil. Oil is the raw material with a huge impact on political, economic and ecological realities. At the same time – extracted from the depths of the earth, from the abyss of time – it is the materialisation of an ancient, chthonic energy unleashed by modern man. The sources of oil are also the sources of wealth and inequality, the fuel for progress and the forces behind wars. The narrative of Gryka’s exhibition thus takes place in the here and now, but also in the universal dimension of a myth. The discourse of the characters, on the other hand, is articulated not in prose, but – as in opera – in the form of poetry and songs, which is perhaps the only form capable of accommodating the complexity and ambivalence of oil.

3D animations: Barbara Gryka, Agata Konarska, Daniil Revkovskyi
opera text: Aleksandra Konarska
composer: Piotr Michalczuk
archival video and ai: Daniil Revkovskyi
educational programme: Patryk Dariusz Gacki, Maciej Kryński
singers: Łukasz Konieczny, Anna Werecka
rap: Jan Albert Cieślak, Paweł Bednarczyk-Bahus
cameraman: Marcin Polar

curator: Waldemar Tatarczuk

Gallery Labirynt, Lublin (PL)

Text: Stach Szabłowski
Pictures: Diana Kołczewska, Wojciech Pacewa
Funded by: Fundacja Artystyczna Podróż Hestii
Partner: Fundacja Artystyczna Podróż Hestii and STU ERGO Hestia S.A.

https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/648980/barbara-grykadirty-blood-de-risking/

Text:

DIRTY BLOOD
OR PROMETHEUS FROM SUBCARPATHIA
PROLOGUE
Prometheus:
You, who are trapped in ancient darkness,
To whom I have sent my beloved daughter
To bring you light torn from the depths of earth
With human thought, behold my fate,
Crushed by Zeus’ envy. The gods are cruel,
Ruled by envy rooted in fear,
That you, enlightened with her liquid luminance,
Will become wiser and stronger than gods,
The smoke from the sacrificial altars will fade,
The songs will become silent, and they will return
To eternal darkness, our shared origin.
Thus they chained me to the rocks of Ararat,
Where the last people fled the fury of the flood,
Following a dove to find the first shore,
And forced me to witness the endless slaughter
Of my ancestors’ people and others, drowning
Your lives and the lives of my children
Like a deluge, on the slopes of the mountain
Which stands like a warning, overlooking my country,
Reminding that gods’ envy is boundless
And forever-ready to repeat this fate.
But do not avert your eyes and tear at your robes
In lamentation, as my purest daughter,
With her prismatic, luminous braids, dances
Among your cities and dwellings. She carries power and light
That crush gods, because enlightened by the torch
Of her fluid luminosity you see them
As just straw men. Do not mind
The black two-headed eagle as it rips into my liver,
Its empire will crumble into dust
And the lamentation of its people will never cease.

[retrospective]
But for the power of straw men, who in their pride
Call themselves gods, not to cover your eyes
Again with its poppy sleep, you must remember
How my daughter was born here, among you,
Not on divine Olympus or in heavens,
But in a simple people oppressed by the eagle’s claw.
From this land, among you and for you.
Defeated in the first battle with the invader,
I had to taste disgrace in the eagle’s clutches
And in disgrace go into exile,
Abandon my fatherland, the country of my heart.
I have weaved my errant fate with the sign of the gold star
Where, in the smoke of alchemical potions
I searched for a force to liberate my people.
But in the despair of a blind man in the abyss
With no spark, no chance for salvation,
The only freedom I could see was the escape
Into the oblivion of dreams.
But when I wished to brew this spell with alchemy,
powerful, intoxicating for every man to drink,
She gushed from the depths and descended from heavens
With her rainbow fingertips, black and translucent,
Fluid and fiery, purest and subterrestrial, perfect.
Not sure if she was my daughter or my goddess,
I failed to see if she gushed from under
My errant fingers or descended from the mountains
To put an end to my madness.

PARODOS
EPEISODION I
STASIMON I
KOMMOS
Dziewanna:
I ran to you through the rustling grass,
I ran and chased a blue-feathered bird
with its sweet song. Then fire rose
from the depths of eternal branches and roots
and a flock of birds swelled towards the sun
away from red flames. Like a startled doe,
I ran as fast as I could, in the rush of life,
but red feathers caught my dress and braid.
All the trees burned, not a bird or butterfly,
Nor deer nor I escaped the flame.
No longer do rustling forests cast their shadows,
You will find no cool streams or green leaves
To soothe your tired eyes. There is no home
for the butterfly, deer, kestrel or ant,
The clover no longer glows with a maiden’s blush
or the warmth of joy, and the mustard plant
no longer shines like amber, but with ruby flames.
I walked the Niemen’s dry riverbed,
Wading through a graveyard of crayfish and clams,
And the sacred steps of the Arkona temple
Were sullied by deathly slime brought by tide
in seashells and guts of dead fish.
A tainted temple, unclean are
Your sacrifices and all that you eat
From land and sea and heavens.
And I, a homeless exile with no shelter
Or temple, will wander alone
Chased by eternal fire, and my spirit’s house
Will never again grow on this barren land.
It is all because of your Promethean pride,
You insatiable, voracious daughter of evil
Torn from the depths of earth and the bottom of seas
By the fire of your boundless hunger.
You belong to the abyss, the underworld,
And under the sun you bring only death and destruction,
Usurper.

Velesa:
Gods! Send servants to my land,
A regiment of soldiers, accountants learned in books,
And farmhands to do the dirty work,
Because I cannot house more of the dead.
They spend a month in queues at the gates of hell
Ready to get angry and crawl back out into the sun
Even a saint could not bear it, and woe
There are few saints among them, and their wrath is great.
I am Velesa, the viper-skinned goddess,
I rule the underbelly of this world,
I order this morgue, welcome and sort,
I do the accounting and register the names,
And in shared interest I guard the gates
So that death and ghosts do not crawl back into life.
I know nothing of what you do under the sun,
Your goals are none of my concern,
But if you want to keep slaughtering them
Like the world has never seen before
Than the balance between the worlds
Needs to be set anew between you and us,
So that more is given to death and less to life.
But I see the mad goddesses as ghosts,
Two shadows escaped from my land,
Once all-mighty and now despised
By your soulless, mad worshippers.
Come to me! Closer! Come dance with me!
Though in their pride the living cast you out,
The power of death will restore your glory,
They will crawl in ashes before your might,
They will whine like dogs beneath your feet.
Come with me to the underworld, though they
Have no place for you under the sun and will not see you,
They cannot avert their fearful eyes from death.

Marzanna:
I stand on the threshold of the world in a melting dress
Drowned for the last time by laughing children
Colour has left my doll’s paper ribbons
But I cannot return to the house of year
So I linger on the threshold like a thief or ghost
As my new white dress flows from my shoulders
like wax from a burning candle, laying bare the wick
I am ashamed to stand naked before the face of year
It is not right to bare my bosom in front of the old man
So I stand in the doorway, my cheeks burning with shame
Their heat too makes my dress melt away
The ice of my ruffles crashes into seas with a roar
Drowning the songs of seals and the cries of whales.
And so the white bear no longer has a home
Where will she, the unfortunate, turn?
Where will white foxes and penguins go?
Who will put the sap in trees to sleep?
And I shall wander like a purgatory soul
That can neither enter the year nor be gone
My white dress and my shoulders will fall
Until, bitter and venomous, I will conquer my shame
And ghastly, reveal my terrible form
With egg-sized hail, and house-wrecking gale
With tides that flood cities and storms that sink isles.

EPEISODION II
Prometheus:
Abraham Schreiner! Son of Moses
Father of the purest daughter born of two fathers.
You found her burning wild among rocks,
Looking at the sun with her rainbow eyes.
You collected her in a jar from rocky springs
And carried her in your arms to me with hope
That her purest body, bright and all-hued,
Will bring sweet oblivion, peaceful dream
To the people oppressed by the black eagle’s talon;
Which will tear at my liver for eternity.
You carried her in your arms with hope that in my retorts
She will become firewater gushing from earth
With an endless spring, wherever you go.
And we will not have to collect grapes
Or dig for potatoes, or reap a field of grain
For a nation, even starved, to have a peaceful sleep
And oblivion in their hearts. And you were right.
Though it doomed us all, how could you have known,
That a nation lost in darkness can meet a fate
Better than a dream free from fear, hunger and worry.
But do not despair, brighten your face!
Though unable to do what you wished,
Her body, distilled in alchemical heat
Turned into a wondrous and great light.
As she flowed from the rocks
Not to bring sleep, but awakening,
Not oblivion, but the radiance of unending dawn,
To illuminate the darkness of poor huts,
Free from fear of flame which, on its red feathers,
Carries all, with no remorse, to the underworld.
To give sight to doctors at night, so they
No longer waiting for dawn could outrun
The swift horse of death that needs no rest.
She let the dearest among us to draw,
Amidst poverty and hunger, the abundance
From her springs, to live like free people,
Without fear of hunger, deprivation, or winter’s cold.
She became not only the bearer of light,
But the goddess of travel that the boundless earth
Shrunk, like a deflated ball.
With the blackest, heaviest part of her body,
She spun the globe with a web of black braids
on which machines, with her body in their guts, raced,
smaller than a carriage but stronger than thousand horses.
And each can go wherever their heart calls,
And none will be chained to earth
Like a beast enslaved by its fate.
As if humanity grew wings at its feet,
And each corner of earth could become home
To any person, not only native-born.
Abraham, though you thought yourself foolish
Carrying the underground oils under the gold star,
You were the wisest of people and among the living
You did the greatest good to your people.

Glory to you too, Adam Bratkowski,
Though they praise me for your great talent and thought
Let the people and god hear that you are the father
Of the lamp that brings them light in the dark.
Glory to you, oh genius from across the sea,
Edwin Drake, who drilled the earth
To find my rainbow-haired daughter
Where no human had dared to look before.
Glory to you, Nicolaus August Otto,
Who with the power of enlightened mind,
Understood that she is stronger than water and coal,
And together with light she carries great might.
Glory to you, Carl and Bertha Benz,
Though you came from the black eagle nation,
You put Nicolaus’ thought into action
So it could serve the people.
Karl, who created the horseless carriage,
Which boiled in its guts our daughter’s liquid might,
More powerful than the best set of horses.
Bertha! The only mother among our daughter’s many fathers.
Glory to you for your faith, courage and commitment,
More fitting to a knight than a lady,
With your faith in your husband’s genius you rode
The horseless carriage farther than anyone would dare.
Glory to the great trio, Robert Hopkins,
Bryan Berco nad David McKettley,
Who paved her underground paths so that
She knows no seas, mountains or boundaries.
Glory to you, James Florey, who let her
Sail the blue waves of her immense routes.
Glory to you, Albert De Dion, the winner of the race
that brought fame to our daughter’s glory.
Glory to you, Rudolf Diesel, my brother in alchemy,
Who melted bright fractions of her godly body
Into power greater than gold.
Glory to you, Bosch, also of noble name,
Who ignited a tiny spark inside the engine,
The last piece left for our victory to come.
And finally, glory to you, my friend from across the ocean,
From faraway Detroit, Henry Ford, who knew
That our beautiful daughter should not serve the rich,
But the people, who, from mining the underground springs,
To the last gear in machines, toil in the holy service to the
goddess.
Just like me, you had always wanted
To bring your people freedom and abundance, lack of fear,
So that every worker building the horseless carriage,
From the fruit of their labor could purchase it
And use it to go wherever their heart would guide them.
Glory to you, the more reasonable of Ikarus’ brothers,
Orville and Wilbur Wright, who sent our daughter
To the heavens, into the limitless expands of ether,
For anyone who walks the earth to see
The tops of clouds, like gods, if they choose to fly.
For you listened to fathers and instead of feathers and wax
You had the power of my daughter cast in your iron wings.

Rise all fathers
Of though, progress and light!
Though it is contrary to nature
Our daughter has many fathers.
But from nature’s claws and fangs
Which bring death, hunger and fear,
We have freed our people.
So let us sing of the divine power of light
Let us offer bloodless sacrifice
To the goddess!
As reason dwells in the brain,
A living organ through which
The blood must flow, like in any other,
With its scarlet stream.
And you are humanity’s blood.

STASIMON II
Strophe
Oh! Rotten are the hearts of gods!
Corrupted by the plague of power
Their bloated bellies can never
Be filled with dreadful sacrifices.
Gaia, like Kronos, should swallow
You with the gaping cave
So that the pride of these perversions
never rises in your name.
More rotten than the gods,
They thought, in their stupidity,
They will match you and ancient titans.
Their bellies are more insatiable
Than those of the gods
They denounced
While seeing godhood
In themselves.
Antistrophe
But their hunger is as boundless
As their stupidity is bottomless,
They have stoked a terrible fire
Under the dome of the great mother
They heated the cool ether
Like inside a grand furnace
And in this furnace they will die
Like vermin suffocated by smoke.
Cursed be the fire starters
With their greedy mouths
and bloated bellies
Who worship only
Their power and their wealth.
They care not for life or decency.
Let them forever burn in the furnace
Which they lit up.
Let them boil in kerosene,
Travel hellish roads
heavy with asphalt grime,
Let them eat paraffin
And drink black oil,
So never can they sense
A drop of water
Or a whiff of ether.

Cursed be: Robert, Ludvig and Alfred Nobel
Samuel and Marcus Samuel
Henry Ford and Henri Deterding
William Knox D’Arcy
Your compatriot, Calouste Gulbenkian
George Bernard Reynolds
Torkild Rieber
Ibn Saud
Al-Husseini
Erwin Rommel
Reza Pahlavi
Armand Hammer
Winston Churchill
Let them burn in hell
Standard Oil of Ohio, South Improvement Company, The
Petroleum Production Company Nobel Brothers, Royal Dutch
Shell, Ford Motor Company, Anglo Persian Oil, Turkish Petrol
Company, Compagnie Francais de Petroles, Iran Petrol
Company,
Socal,
Texaco,
Aramco
and British Petroleum
And above all cursed be the poisoner form Cleveland
That thinks himself a god and has lost his soul to money.
EPEISODION III
EXODOS
EPILOGUS

ROCKEFELLER
I can be hard, but I make people easy
You can lay sad, but fear will wake you up
When I bleed I bleed with crude oil, boy
when you bleed it’s just crude
I do want I want, everything’s my toy
So don’t intrude
Why I need the bacon
So a dumb hussy
With her lips pussy
Whenever I come on
Fuck this shit
Look at him, Prometheus
No need to get religious
Don’t teach me how to rule
Cause even good Zeus will be dead
Put out the match, you’ll wet your bed.
You’re so fucking holy
But if you had nil
You’d suck dick for a mill
A poor little shithead
It all comes back to haunt me
So before I drop dead
Good father please give me
The time, or anything you have too
The money, so I can still do some good.

Dirty Blood video HD 28 min 36 sec.
Dirty Blood – Archive HD 10 min 39 sec.

Dimensions: 180 x 1740 h: 760