Singularity
The “technological singularity” (Singularity) is the moment when technological development accelerates to such a degree that humans lose the ability to comprehend the phenomena around them. Marcin Sauter interprets this in the context of the contemporary phenomenon of visual saturation — images often generated or altered by artificial intelligence — where it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish truth from fiction.
The artist, long devoted to photographic documentation, observes how, in the age of social media and unlimited image manipulation, certainty about the authenticity of photographs is disappearing. Fake news, virtual identities, and digital fabrications create a “world that doesn’t exist” — a space where the traditional concept of the documentary loses its foundation.
The exhibition “Singularity” responds to this process. Sauter contrasts it with analog photography — a medium resistant to easy falsification, where imperfection, materiality, and the human touch become valuable. The negative, impossible to manipulate without leaving traces, preserves credibility and the aura of the original.
The works on display represent a selection of the artist’s most unusual and experimental photographs, created exclusively with light-sensitive techniques. They emerged from experiments with exposure time, color, and space, in situations where the method was uncertain and the result unpredictable. Intuition became the main creative tool in these works.
Alongside the photographs, the artist also presents the cameras he uses in pursuit of a “world that is strange, imperfect, indescribable” — a world recorded at the intersection of intuition and the desire to preserve reality. Reality, as long as it still exists.
Marcin Sauter studied Photography at the Polish National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź (PWSFTviT). For many years, he worked as a photojournalist for Gazeta Wyborcza, and also collaborated with Rzeczpospolita daily and Pozytyw monthly. He is a member of the Association of Polish Art Photographers (ZPAF), the Polish Film Academy, and the Polish Society of Cinematographers (PSC). He graduated from the Documentary Course at the Andrzej Wajda Master School of Film Directing, where he later taught for many years. He also completed film directing studies. Sauter is a co-founder of the Bydgoszcz Film Chronicle project. As both a director and cinematographer, he has created dozens of documentary and fiction films, and has held numerous solo photography exhibitions. In 2006, he received the Grzegorz Ciechowski Award and a congratulatory letter from the President of Poland for his international film achievements.Sauter’s films have won dozens of awards worldwide, including major prizes in Vilnius, London, Kraków, Paris, Dublin, Mexico City, Houston, Prague, Budapest, Istanbul, Poznań, Shanghai, Lisbon, and elsewhere. He is a winner of the Grand Prize at IDFA in Amsterdam – the most important documentary film festival in Europe – and received the Golden Frog award for his film Zhalanash – Empty Shore.
Opening:
19.09.2025 | 19:30
Opening hours:
Tuesday–Thurdsay | 10:00–18:00
Friday | 12:00–20:00
Saturday–Sunday | 12:00–17:00
Gallery of Modern Art Leon Wyczółkowski District Museum in Bydgoszcz