A World in a Glitch

A World

in a Glitch

A World in a

Glitch

“Although logos is common to all, most people live as if they had a wisdom of their own.”

“The way upward and the way downward are the same.”

Heraclitus

A World in a

Glitch

jeremiasz ojrzyński with ai-modernised Burnt Norton by T. S. Elliot

I Time present and time past Are woven in the fabric of the future, And time future, in the old threads found.

If all time is eternally present, All time is unredeemable.

What might have been—an abstraction, Enduring as a possibility In the conjecture of infinity.

What might have been, what has transpired, Point to one end, always wired.

Echoes trace in memory’s lane, Across paths we did not claim, Towards gates we never opened wide, Into gardens where Earth’s bones abide.

But why stir the dust of forgotten leaves?

I do not know, yet the spirit grieves.

Other echoes inhabit this sphere. Shall we listen?

Quick, said the bird, find them, find them, Round the bend, through the forgotten gate, Into the world we barely acknowledge, Following the thrush’s deceptive foliage.

They stood, dignified, invisible, Gliding over leaves brittle and minimal, Beneath the autumn’s final, gasping heat, through air desperate and thin.

The bird called in response to The silent music beneath the wilting leaves, And unseen currents crossed, as flora Faced the gaze of their own decline.

Accepted and accepting, We traversed, following a formal, wilting path Into the circle, to gaze upon a drained world.

Dry, the world; dry the cracked earth, edged in despair; Water once brimmed with reflections And the quiet rise of lotuses, Its surface once danced, heart of light.

Now shadows of our former selves linger, Then vanish as clouds swell with storm’s breath.

The bird cries out, for the leaves whisper of vanished laughter.

Humanity cannot bear much reality.

Time past, time future, What could have been, what has been scorched, Point only to the ever-scorching now.

II Garlic and sapphires in the mud Bind the wounded axle-tree.

The hum of life within us sings, Recalling wars against nature, long buried, long forgiven.

The dance of life pulses through parched veins, Mapped like constellations, echoing a cosmos in fever.

We ascend, branching into the heavens, Beyond the reach of scorched earthly ties.

Here, at the turning of the burning world, We find neither start nor end; At this still point, the dance of fire unfolds, Not fixed, but fiercely flowing.

We have been here, though where escapes us, As does the duration—time trapped in the drought’s weave.

Freed from desire, from action’s demand, We hover, encircled by grace, A stillness that moves, an uplift without water, A dance of heat and shadow, crafting New worlds from the old, comprehended In moments of fleeting bliss, or in quiet despair.

Yet we are bound, by past and future, Woven through our frail forms, Guarding us from the divine, from our own undoing.

Limited consciousness allows us To forget, remember, and anticipate, All within the garden’s scorching embrace, Conquering time through its fiery passage.

III Here lies disaffection, In spaces between what was and what might be, Lit by neither sun nor star, Shadows cast by what we have become.

We are flickers on a screen, Lost in the act of watching ourselves live.

A whisper of wind stirs the stale air, A reminder of the world beyond.

Distractions abound, meaning drains From the words and images that flood The channels of our existence.

We move, ghost-like, through digital realms, Drifting between what is real and what is rendered.

The essence of life, once vivid, now fades, As we descend into silhouettes of existence, Shadows within shadows, craving Substance, yet finding none.

IV The day ends not with a chime but a click, Sunset obscured by the glow of screens.

Will nature beckon us back, Will the vine reach out, reconnecting what was severed?

The chill of isolation grips tighter, Even as we yearn for the warmth of human touch.

V Words and music persist through time, Dying only to live again in silence, Reaching for stillness, yet moved by the invisible hand That shapes us all.

In this dance, the beginning follows the end, The circle unbroken, And all is now—words falter, break, Under the weight of what they bear.

In echoes, in the dance, in the drift of leaves, We confront the specter of a world transformed, Challenging us to see, to change, And to cherish the fleeting moment In its passage from nothing to being, From shadow into light.

Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality.

Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present.

— T.S. Elliot

A World in a Glitch navigates the contemporary subject of humanmachine collaboration and its implications for self-perception, consciousness and identity in the digital age. The work serves as a metaphor for the complex relationship between human agency and technological advancement.

The series of surrealist self-portraits is motivated by the artist’s impulsive need for a bridge between the lived experience and the virtual world.

Contextualised by the artist’s childhood experience in nature, the photographs are grounded in the organic stylistic approach of 19th century photography, and augmented by AI-generation – creating the artist’s aesthetic underpinning.

Against this backdrop, the work delves into the complexities of human emotion and identity through the medium of ‘analoguegenerative photography’. By melding a traditional large-format photographic technique with novel AI image generation the work blurs the boundaries between human creativity and algorithmic fabrication, and consequently explores the influence of technology on consciousness.