The group, consisting of Michal Grochowiak, Marcin Gwiazdowski, Jakub Jasiukiewicz (and Pawel Dziemian until the end of 2007) was founded in 2004 in Poznan, Poland.

4!'s practice is focuses around the area of video art. It is accompanied by attempts of redefining notions which are deeply rooted in the social consciousness. Recurring subjects are, for example, the fear of the unknown or a question of a compromise between nature and culture. In 4!'s installations, images balance on the border of the aesthetics of film and classical painting. Individual video elements are arranged into open-ended, nonlinear and often surreal narrations. Above all, they aim to evoke curiosity, and provide only that much information and aesthetical pleasure, that is necessary to break the ignorance.

Upcoming shows:

Media Festival platform:[no budget], Tübingen, Germany, June 2009
19 Vidoeofestival Bochum, Germany, June 2009
Video in Progress 3, photon gallery, Ljubljana, Slovenia, June - July 2009
Hazard, 13 Muz Metropolitan Gallery, Szczecin, Poland, July 2009
Boondocks an Urban Art Ploject , Hannover, Germany, September 2009

Ongoing works:

Parliament will be series of installations (photography, objects and video work). It is going to be an impression about the issue of governmental power (without references to any actual governments). It will consist of: unidentified national flags hanged in a half of mast, flapping on artificial wind; chendaliers made of glossy osiris pendulums; massive door controlled by digital lock, randomly dividing audience into groups with or without the access, into we and they.

Hazard Cycle is being realised by 4! group since 2007. Five images have been produced until now: “Tent”, “Ball”, “Axe”, “Noise”, and “Suitcase”. Altogether, they build a multi-channel, interconnected video installation. Their soundtracks fill the space, overlap and compete with each other. “Axe” for four minutes and fifty seconds drowns out the rest of pieces then falls silent for five minutes and ten seconds. “Ball” fills the opposite space, simply distorted music which emphasizes the oneiric atmosphere of the image. “Tent” consists of two panoramic projections juxtaposed to recount a sad story of two girls who made their getaway to the wood. “Suitcase” is a video initiating the second part of the cycle which will concentrate on “still lifes in action”. As opposed to the first cycle which took shape of portraits, the second one will focus on objects involuntarily coming into life in a space filled with noise.

This project is about the risk which is inherent part of our chaotic world. It is about the risk as a specific potential, possibility of failure. Hope for success, which inseparably goes together with a threat of fiasco. Kind of ambivalent and grotesque, which in some sense accompanies every, even the most prosaic activity. Sequence of causes and effects of our doings and things happening around is impenetrable. Certainly not in real time. It is extremely complicated mathematics. We are surrounded by beautiful chaos. We also have beautiful chaos inside us. Sometimes we realise that even during simple routine activity, even during inactivity we can become a victim of a disaster. Small, big, whatever. The world and the time are jam-packed with disasters.

“Hazard” aims to depict the wrong places at the wrong time. Situations shown on the Hazard videos are trying to grasp specific elementary mood, which can be found in Greek tragedies, fairy tales by the Grimm brothers as well as Lars von Trier’s screenplays. It is a search for a common denominator of these stories, which is also present in our daily experience. In school, we were taught that it is all about the fate or slings and arrows of outrageous god or gods. However, maybe it is rather the risk which we breathe in, unpredictability of beautiful chaos which we live in, and which we carry inside us. Today gold, tomorrow dust. Eeny, meeny, miny, mo.

“Period” is a group attempt to get a grip on “time which drips ugly between the fingers”. Notification of a repetition circle and the rotation of it is in the same time self inscribing in this circle. We are describing it like that: nonsense is a reason and possibility of image construction, is a reconstruction of small issues (but maybe also big ones). Period classifies existence, establishes a point of reference. This point is a start point, where everything begins - again and again...

By using different media such as video, photography, objects, sound or graphic visual message, Four Factorial’s artists join in the discussion about human relation with nature, technology, society and power. Compatibility of nature and technology and its influence on human senses is a regular motive. Imitating natural processes machines are an indicator of this interest (Ohm projects). As the title suggests the project belongs to both scientific and spiritual spheres. In physics, the ohm is a unit of electrical resistance. In Hinduism, it is the most important mantra was adapted by Western pop culture. That process is one of the proofs of spirituality crisis.
Krzysztof Pijarski