Konrad Wyrebek is British-Polish artist living and working in London, UK.

Data Error are a series of large format abstract paintings and video-paintings using images captured from television, film, and print that represent contemporary living, lifestyle and culture.

Each image is pixelated through a succession of digital compressions with deliberate settings causing corruption of data in transfer between different softwares and devices. Wyrebek explains that there is a connection between the process and the intensification of abstraction Mondrian's paintings.

During the process, images are destroyed, protected and subsequently retrieved. “It is related to my interest in imperfection and deformation.”

“I know what I am interested in and I am trying to make that happen. When you are watching a video online, you can see that sometimes pixelation happens for a second, but I am trying to set the condition to make it happen a bit longer”

Wyrebek’s large-format abstract paintings examine the relationship of mark-makings between the emotional artist's hand and rational technology. The question is also raised as to how far and how soon, humanity is losing itself in the digital; how far we are already embarked on a journey that merges mind and body with the stuff of machine.

Like Wyrebek's previous half flash, half steel ‘live sculpture’, contrasting elements are brought into play in the Data Error Paintings Apart from showing merely elements of abstraction, Wyrebek's paintings also retain the possibility of interference. They are not simply the product of the corrupting process of data, each painting is unique and singular, and each finishing layer is retouched.

The nature of abstract art is always a subject of investigation in Wyrebek's work. “Can photography be abstract?” he asks. In his previous work, Plato's Cave, he photographed abstract light in different environments. The photographs look abstract, but they are, nevertheless, a faithful representation of reality. “It is a presentation of something that looks abstract, but it was an object, a video, a picture.”

“I like the randomness. When the mistakes come out, for me, they look beautiful. By enforcing this mistake, they have the potential to become deeper stories than they are. The mistakes and pixelation eventually end up looking interesting, and have the intellectual potential to open the gate to see and understand something different.”

There is a certain irony in Wyrebek's abstract paintings. When the details are gone, we are forced to step back to see a clearer and bigger picture. As the viewers step back, the borders of the pixels become invisible, the process of pixelation is being reversed and the seemingly calm, regular and geometrical pixels become chaotic and dynamic. By reducing the superficial meaning, and by abstracting the figurative, artists like Wyrebek knowingly compel viewers to search for meaning in the artwork, to see rather than simply look.

On a daily basis, we are exposed to vast amounts of information that can be interrupted, transformed or even corrupted. Konrad Wyrebek's Data Error paintings open discussion and further investigation into the chaotic and complex DNA of the digital age.

“Politics of Pink” by Marta Szymura

(About the pink painting)

1. “Are there particular motivations behind your use of the colour pink?” 

It makes me feel excited. I think of my childhood, happiness, summer, fruity flavors and sex ...probably outdoors. I don't see it as masculine or feminine i feel it as a joy!

2. “What do you associate with the colour pink when you apply it to your practice?” 

My works comes from distorting figurative images found in various medias and published on social networks. I dont use pink that much, therefore the painting you see in this show is rather special.

I prefer to leave it open to your interpenetration but the source material consist of you porn, Brexit 2018 update, pink flamingos or latest ms Angela Merkel's pantsuit! 

3. "Do you agree that in art the shade pink can be used as a tool to subvert and distort its traditional cultural associations?”

Yes sure I agree. Art is like another universe where we freely construct and deconstruct old and new ideas we throw it up out there, see if World is going to swallow it.

More often just lick it like a strawberry ice cream.

WIRED Magazine

Meet the artists using tech to preserve our history 

By SIAN BRADLEY

To create his paintings, Konrad Wyrebek pores over a TV show for hours on end, searching for a moment when the stream pixelates. Once he captures this flicker of distortion, he starts over, looking out for the next glitch with just the right light and colours.

Wyrebek then layers still images of the glitches over one another until he’s left with something that’s so corrupted it’s hardly recognisable beyond blurred shapes. To create these distortions, Wyrebek streams footage at high speed between two devices. It’s a little like watching a YouTube video when your Wi-Fi connection is low and looking out for the inevitable buffering.

Next, he projects the final screenshot onto a canvas. From this, he paints in the pixelated image – using brushes, stencils inks and sprays – before covering some sections in tape to correct any mistakes with a programmed spray painter.

And so he alternates between human and machine, each correcting the others errors. When complete, his paintings are five or seven layers thick. The result? A series of paintings and video-paintings called Data Error, captured from television, film, and print. They are all politically or culturally relevant; he's more likely to pick a newsreader discussing the Ukrainian war than an advert, for example.

When I meet Wyrebek in their white-walled studios on opposite sides of London, they are both clad in white tees and black jeans. Driven by a desire to preserve traditional art and by an enthusiasm for the potential of technology.

Wyrebek studied art history in Poland. His piece 2DkMoMonetClBLK echoes Monet's Water Lilies. Yet Wyrebek’s work, and mind, is fixed on what’s coming next. “I imagine a future where we transfer our minds into a machine,” he tells me with casual enthusiasm. To prepare for this future, he combines the imperfection of human touch with the precision of a machine. “To be able to make mistakes is what life is about.” That's why he leaves his human marks on the side of the canvas, to show the tension between what humans and technology can achieve.

He’s interested in data errors in the same way he’s interested in the subjective nature of perception. "We live in a culture where we take information in without questioning the source. Every image has data errors inside, so its conceptually interesting to question this."

Wyrebek wants people to consider his work, but not as an art critic; it’s about understanding that there are many different ways of interpreting the finished piece, as with the original footage. Yet when you peel back the smart technology and the high-end materials, you’re still left with two people who are painters at heart.

Wyrebek says he can collaborate with machines whilst still using traditional processes, such as finishing with varnish. Adding varnish creates another dimension to his work. If you move to stand at the painting's side and look across it, you will see the differing layers; some pixels gleam with shine and others are matte.

"I am still making aesthetic and creative decisions based on the colour, composition, and where to stop the recording," he says with conviction. "This is the new kind of artwork you can create with technology but still be strongly grounded in art history and in the process of painting itself. It is a painting at the end of the day."

Studio Visit: Konrad Wyrebek – Elephant Magazine

Czech-born, London-based artist Konrad Wyrebek creates 'data error' paintings; works created from still shots of technical blips, that are then built up with intricate layers of paint, the human hand meeting with the precision of the machine.  Words by Emily Steer.

How are these pieces made?

I call them data error paintings, and I create them by corrupting videos or images. I send the video or image between software or devices—so between two phones, or laptops or stream it online—and I record the process. As it happens, a glitch or an error will start to occur. Then I do it again, and again, and again. After the moment when I get something interesting, I select the area that I’m most interested in—for the colour, the composition, whatever else—when I feel like it’s working for me, and then I make a painting from it. I take a screenshot and then work with five to seven layers of paint, with a projector and lots of taping. Five of the seven layers usually are handmade, and for two layers I will work with the machine as well. I start manually with a stencil, with the layers of white and black. They’re a mixture of loads of different techniques.

How do you select the source material? Is the original image important?

It is conceptually important yes. I like the idea of nature and technology being together or against one another. For centuries humans have been separating from nature, but we are getting to an age where we are taking directly from nature; so we’re looking at solar panels, and even some materials are designed in a way that they open up in the same way leaves might open up. I like this tension with the concept. The show at Ron Mandos is related to the issue of global warming and climate change, so the source material was really important for me here. I looked for two different sources—the video footage related to the ice caps, melting ice and the scientific investigation about what is happening with that, and the other thing that is very crucial for global warming which is weather changes around the world. I removed the human presence, so it’s not like a catastrophe, I wanted to keep it very nature based. In the show I don’t talk about all aspects of global warming, as that would be impossible, but I talk about the information side. So the corruption of the information about global warming and the way it’s being shown. I talked to scientists, philosophers, writers, my friends who are artists, and specialists in the global market in the last eight months of my research. What I found out is that there is a big confusion about global warming. The main media coverage is that humans are responsible and this is the angle we are taking, but if you talk to scientists they are actually not so sure that this is the case. So this was very interesting for me, and I spoke to psychologists who explained there is this need every few years for an apocalyptic vision. The very interesting angle is that humans like to be in charge of our reality, of the world we are living in. So taking the position that actually we screwed up and are responsible is putting us in power. Otherwise, if we aren’t repressible, there is a loss of power. There’s also a drive there towards spending on the new technologies and cars. I don’t say it’s true, good or bad, but I’m more interested in bringing awareness and raising the questions. I like to question the information.

One of the first video paintings I ever did was of a newsreader, and it’s the most vivid example of what the work’s about. Because I travel a lot and I was born in Czech, and my parents are from Russia and Poland, and now I’m living here [London], what I notice is that in every single country, information about say, Ukraine, is presented very differently. So there is this margin of corruption to the information which I like to question. I don’t really change the footage, I just set it out and hunt for an error to occur. This is the process, and then because I’m a painter, of course I like to paint it.

Where would you say it came from? Did you have an interest in these kind of glitches before you began painting, or were you experimenting first with a painting style that led you to this?

It’s interesting actually, before my studies I was very focused in this subject, I used to do this kind of art, and then I went and studied for several years (7 in total) and made completely different art to what I’m making here. It was also about deformation, and it was painting and video too, but they were figurative and human. As soon as I finished my studies I came back to this style. So in a way, I went for my studies, I learnt technique, I did something aesthetically very different and then came back to the beginning of my roots. This current series has roots maybe even 12 years ago.

I read in your statement that you want to explore the hand of the artist, against the idea of technology that is very much more controlled. Do you find the control of the process you use very satisfying because it is so controlled, or is there a tussle going on?

Do you know, the process is very complex. I start to paint on the computer, I’m looking for the concept but I’m also looking for the colour. I’m looking at the screen for hours, and corrupting the footage. I’m not going into the coding and corrupting something purposefully, because that would be conceptually weaker for me. I still want a figurative image with the error inside so I can emphasise it or set the conditions for it to pop out. So it’s like painting, looking all the time for the settings, adding new footage. Also in terms of art history it’s very interesting; if you imagine that in the painting you are viewing the footage from many angles, and it emerges into one, it’s almost like Cubism, painting a face where you can see it from there, there and there, and then you merge it all together. The beginning of the process is very creative but it’s also very independent. I curate, I make the decisions, I look for the composition, for the colour. I decide how I want to have it, but then there is also this dependency on the machine as well. Creativity and art is the last island that we expect machines to stay out of, so it’s interesting for me to use machines in close collaboration. It’s a long process to get all the details, but I find it very relaxing as well.

I find it interesting that there’s quite a traditional influence on the work, when you did the Instagram takeover on Elephant you posted Caspar David Friedrich’s Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog…

I studied art history so I know a lot about it, and for me it is always inspiring. I think [Friedrich was] standing in the same state in culture and mentality during the Romantic era as we are now. People were standing on an edge, scared of the industrial revolution but also of nature. They were fighting lots of forces in nature, and I think we’re standing in the same moment here, wondering about the changes that are happening. Conceptually I feel this connection. Even if my paintings are very technological, there is this romanticism in them; looking into the future and reflecting on that. Especially with this exhibition I felt this mental state.

Can you tell me a bit about the floor that is showing at 2 C above acCLI M8 X?

I have wanted to make this for a long time, but you need the right space and the right gallery. I’m very happy with the installation. It’s raised on a platform by about 10cm and it connects with the title of the exhibition. A few years ago scientists drew a line, said if global temperatures were going to cross it by 2 celsius, we were going to be screwed! This actually happened a few months ago and no one is talking about it or saying anything. I think about art very holistically, and I wanted the viewer to be in the middle of this situation, with the paintings and the issues I’m addressing.

Would you say you’re inquisitive about technology and what it can do, or are you yourself invested in some of the more environmental questions that come up?

You know this is a very good point. I think naturally there is this kind of tendency in the work, but I don’t really criticise or say: this is bad, or this is good. I’m much more interested in bringing it out to have a conversation about it and understand the world we are living in so that you can navigate that world, or create something out of it. I can see that it could be critical about the information and how it is corrupted, but I’m much more interested in asking the questions than giving a verdict.

You spoke earlier about that apocalyptic belief that every generation has, where they feel they’re living in the end times. But as you also said technology is actually getting closer to nature in many ways.

I think it’s also a question about the ego, the human role and the artist role. Maybe instead of ruling the world we should be collaborating more, and I think this is the new approach, it’s a little bit of the new age as well. Maybe sometimes it connects with some conspiracy theories, but it’s the time we’re living in and I touch many different issues.

Do you study a lot of these issues a lot yourself, or do you mainly go to experts when you’re building a series?

I do a lot of studying myself, and I love nature, it’s something that interests me and I want to know more. So I put into my work what I find out. It’s my interest, so it’s very personal in a way but it’s also something I do all the time. This research is going through my life. I think as an artist this is the thing; I go to sleep, I dream about something, I note it down. It’s not even like a full time job, it’s my life. Sometimes it can be stressful as I constantly think about this, but then, that’s what you do. I couldn’t do anything else and I’m very lucky that I can live off this.

INTERVIEW by  Timothy Chan – The Courtauld Institute of Art, London

Data Error are a series of large format abstract paintings and video-paintings using images captured from television, film, and print that represent contemporary living, lifestyle and culture. 

Each image is pixelated through a succession of digital compressions with deliberate settings causing corruption of data in transfer between different softwares and devices. Wyrebek explains that there is a connection between the process and the intensification of abstraction Mondrian's paintings. 

During the process, images are destroyed, protected and subsequently retrieved “It is related to my interest in imperfection and deformation” 

“I know what I am interested in and I am trying to make that happen. When you are watching a video online, you can see that sometimes pixelation happens for a second, but I am trying to set the condition to make it happen a bit longer” 

Wyrebek’s large-format abstract paintings examine the relationship of mark-makings between the emotional artist's hand and rational technology. The question is also raised as to how far and how soon, humanity is losing itself in the digital; how far we are already embarked on a journey that merges mind and body with the stuff of machine. 

Like Wyrebek's previous half flash, half steel ‘live sculpture’, contrasting elements are brought into play in Data Error Paintings Apart from showing merely elements of abstraction, Wyrebek's paintings also retain the possibility of interference. They are not simply the product of corrupting process of data, each painting is unique and singular, and each finishing layer is retouched. 

The nature of abstract art is always a subject of investigation in Wyrebek's work. “Can photography be abstract?” he asks. In his previous work, Plato's Cave, he photographed abstract light in different environments. The photographs look abstract, but they are, nevertheless, a faithful representation of reality. “It is a presentation of something that looks abstract, but it was an object, a video, a picture” 

“I like the randomness. When the mistakes come out, for me, they look beautiful. By enforcing this mistake, they have the potential to become deeper stories than they are. The mistakes and pixelation eventually end up looking interesting and have the intellectual potential to open the gate to see and understand something different.” 

There is a certain irony in Wyrebek's abstract paintings, when the details are gone, we are but forced to step back to see a clearer and bigger picture. As the viewers step back, the boarders of the pixels become invisible, the process of pixelation is being reversed and the seemingly calm, regular and geometrical pixels become chaotic and dynamic. 

By reducing the superficial meaning, and by abstracting the figurative, artists like Wyrebek’s knowingly compel viewers to search for meaning in the art work, to see rather than simply looking. 

On a daily base we are exposed to vast amounts of information that can be interrupted, transformed or even corrupted. Konrad Wyrebek's DataError paintings open discussion and further investigation the chaotic and complex DNA of the digital age. 

Timothy Chan – The Courtauld Institute of Art, London

FROM “THE WHOLE OTHER”  Hedvig Liestøl – Curator

“The whole is other than the sum of the parts.” – Kurt Koffka, Gestalt psychologist

Wyrebek teeters along a fine line dividing digital interpretation and modern reality, pushing traditional art forms into a contemporary context. Wyrebek’s ‘DataError’ paintings experiment with extreme pixilation, representing the dissemination and malleability of information through digital and social media and challenging pop culture via abstracted television-, film- and social media-based images.

Konrad Wyrebek’s body of work in The Whole Other is also the result of a complex, distinctive artistic process – one he calls ‘DataError’. Wyrebek’s paintings come from “images that are pixelated through a succession of digital compressions with deliberate settings, causing corruption of data in transfer between different software and devices”. He recognizes the significant effect that an ‘error’ – whether technical, digital or human – has on our reading of an image or byte of information. 

His works are therefore “errors of data to start with”: they mimic the transformative nature of communicating news.