How can we tell stories today? Narratives no longer unfold linearly – they branch, fragment, and mislead. The group exhibition IF/THEN at the Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art examines the conditionality of the linguistic rules from which stories are constructed in the age of algorithms, games, and digital culture.

The title, borrowed from the language of programming, refers to the most basic condition: if this happens, then that will follow. We encounter this structure not only in code, but also in prophecies, fairy tales, and everyday decisions. Every action unfolds between condition and consequence.

Twenty-three international groups and artists – 2Girls1Comp, Andrei Chodera-Isakau, Anna Bidzilia, Cassie McQuater, Dorijan Šiško, Filip Kostić, Jan Możdżyński, Janne Schimmel, Joshua Citarella, Kévin Bray, Léa Porré, Levi van Gelder, Lucie Gottlieb, Maciej Krygier, Sara Bezovšek, Sebulec, Sonia Górecka, Theo Triantafyllidis, Tomas Sjögren, Wendi Yan, Wojtek Didkowski, Yi Xie, and Yuliia Frolova – explore narrative as both technology and ideology. Their works employ game mechanics, interactive installations, speculative fiction, and glitch strategies (which deliberately use digital errors as an artistic medium), revealing how stories can be written, rewritten, or disrupted.

The exhibition suggests that we inhabit a post-narrative condition. Yet, storytelling has not ceased; it is spilling into new forms. Stories emerge between what we choose and what chooses us; they permeate screens and devices, slipping beneath the threshold of consciousness.

IF/THEN shows that even the smallest decision – a glance, a step, a pause – can redirect the story onto another path. Many of the works celebrate breakdowns – glitches, jams, and errors – treated not as failures but as methods that open cracks through which new meanings slip, creating moments in which the story unexpectedly turns in another direction. These carriers of discord draw attention to the politics of narrative: who has the right to tell the story, who is inscribed within it, and what remains unsaid.

The exhibition also asks how the logic of games shapes our understanding of life. Save points, respawns, grinding (the repeated performance of a monotonous action), NPCs (Non-Player Characters controlled by the computer), and the roles of main characters cease to be mere metaphors: they become the conditions through which we experience and imagine reality. IF/THEN does not use games to illustrate art; it assumes that games themselves are tools for experiencing alternative worlds, even as reality increasingly resembles a game.

The narrative accompanying the exhibition – unfolding in the multi-threaded spaces of Ujazdowski Castle – is constructed in dialogue with the featured works. It functions as guide, counterpoint, and at times disruption, reminding us that every exhibition is also a story, experienced in a singular way.

IF/THEN does not propose solutions or offer an escape from our conditional present. Instead, it opens a space for a conscious, critical, and at times playful encounter with these conditions.

Artists: 2Girls1Comp, Andrei Chodera-Isakau, Anna Bidzilia, Cassie McQuater, Dorijan Šiško, Filip Kostic, Jan Możdżyński, Janne Schimmel, Joshua Citarella, Kévin Bray, Léa Porré, Levi van Gelder, Lucie Gottlieb, Maciej Krygier, Sara Bezovšek, Sebulec, Sonia Górecka, Theo Triantafyllidis, Tomas Sjögren, Wendi Yan, Wojtek Didkowski, Yi Xie, Yuliia Frolova 

Curators: Sara Szostak, Marta Grytczuk

The new sculptural installation, Feral Metaverse (Katapult MKII), 2025 is commissioned and produced by Ujazdowski Castle Centre for Contemporary Art and co-produced by Onassis ONX.