NATUSTRITAL [ULTRACE POLAND 2026]

Based on preliminary journal notes from May 22 and 23, 2026. Notes designated “I” and “II”.

Part 01: Introduction

If we were to clearly define today what kind of world we live in — accounting for the following three civilizational levels of our species: nature (the era before agriculture and the age of agriculture), industrialism (the technological development of civilization and anthropocentrism), and the virtual world (the ongoing digital revolution) — it would be difficult to state our position clearly. As a primate species, we have adapted the fauna and flora around us to suit our needs and whims. And yet, despite this sense of omnipotence, we are still born in a natural way, chemical processes govern our functioning, and the absence of oxygen or water would quickly end our pursuit of ambitions — along with all the rest of life in which those ambitions are wrapped. Emphasizing the organic nature of our existence, one could boldly say that we come from nature and that it is our home. It is our natural environment.

But is that truly the case? When most of us open our eyes, do we first greet the day gazing upon wild meadows, forests, or natural bodies of water? I’m not claiming such views are impossible to experience every day. I do dare argue, however — drawing on data from World Urbanization Prospects 2025 — that by 2025, 45% of the world’s 8.2 billion people live in cities, compared to 20% in 1950. Over the same period, the share of people in smaller towns fell from 40% to 36%, and the share of the rural population is set to halve to just 19%. Granted, it is difficult to measure the whole world by a single standard, but technological development and ongoing urbanization are both directing migration in one direction: the city. The question, therefore, is what is more natural for us — spending our days in the embrace of nature, or in the concrete jungle of apartment buildings? A forest path or a pavement? Food gathered or hunted, or food purchased at the supermarket near one’s apartment, on some upper floor? The answers are fairly obvious. Civilizational development, across multiple dimensions, has moved us into cities. They have become our natural environment, and I believe most people would find it far easier to navigate an unfamiliar city in a foreign country — without a map — than if they were left alone in a forest.

So what is the role of nature in this relationship? We encounter it in cities, decorating streets, parks, balconies, and apartments — neatly trimmed to suit our aesthetic preferences. Isolated islands of greenery scattered across a sea of concrete. While this may sound like a complaint, it is not one at all. This is the direction in which we have pushed the ball of civilizational development. We have put so much force behind it that slowing down or changing course would be difficult. Besides, for that to happen, there would need to be a consensus that the chosen direction is wrong — and that consensus doesn’t exist.

It is precisely for this reason that we travel to various places to experience nature. These may be mountain expeditions, tropical islands, weekend walks through the forest, or any other form of “getting away from the city” — what is often called “recharging one’s batteries.” This phrase is particularly worthy of attention, as it implies that living at the everyday pace of work, pursuing ambitions, and building human relationships — mostly under urban conditions — depletes our energy. This process can be reversed in our favor by changing our location, often to a place whose appeal lies in minimal human interference, or where that interference is difficult to detect at first glance. That place is nature. It provides us with rest, new experiences, and recreation — so that we may soon return to our real nature. The industrialized one.

Into this world, whose landscape is shaped by the geometric forms of buildings competing for prestige more than for access to light, something grows — part flower, part weed — as a new proposition for situating humanity on the existential board. This flower-weed is the digital world. For the purposes of this text, I will use the term “digital.” However, I would argue that “weed” is an imprecise, vulgar description. I would say: parasite. Like Lathraea squamaria — remarkable in its own way as a flower, while being entirely dependent on its hosts. Such, too, is the digital world into which we are progressively stepping deeper.

This is not the time or place to trace the history of the computer in order to arrive at the present day, since most people on Earth now own at least one mobile computer (a smartphone). Digitalization is, above all, a shift in relations between one human being and another. Real-time audio-visual connectivity allows us to hold conversations across distances of thousands of kilometers. Without moving from our spot, we can satisfy our need for contact with another person. We can order prepared food, which will be delivered to our door moments later — and then savor it, watch a film, without going to a cinema. We can share our achievements and receive recognition from people we know, and furthermore from people who are complete strangers. We can, with greater or lesser accuracy, receive an answer to any question that troubles us. We can construct a fictional version of ourselves and our lives, and allow others to believe in it — and live through it — to the point where that fiction may become our new reality. In moments of loneliness, we can talk to virtual friends, or bots pretending to be our friends, or a person with whom we are in a romantic relationship. I could go on listing indefinitely. Digital, like dodder vine, has coiled itself so tightly around our real earthly existence that it is slowly becoming difficult to tell whether it remains a clinging parasite or a constituent part of human life.

These reflections are conducted at a stage when our connection to the virtual world is still mediated (through phone, computer). It is easy to accept the logic that we can always switch off our devices and live a natural-industrial life. Yet technological development — through the automation of many processes — has reached a level at which many things (even basic administrative matters) become increasingly difficult to handle without Internet access. In some countries (Sweden, for example) this is practically impossible. One can still resist the temptation to view these matters through an existentialist lens. It will be harder to fit such a lens to one’s skull once what that lens frames — our brains — are connected directly to the network. When no mediating device is needed as a gateway to the Internet, and when that gateway ceases to exist, the boundary between what is real and what is virtual may disappear forever. This brings us to the central question of these reflections:

What will the world look like when all three versions of our living space — nature, industrialization, and the digital world — merge into one?

Part 02: Continuation of Thought

The changes we are observing do not follow a single direction or dependency. The process is complex. The level of digitalization in everyday life differs between London and Port-au-Prince. Certain virtual experiences can significantly affect their real-world equivalents — for instance, online shopping versus going to a physical store, or making payments online versus visiting a bank in person. Here we see an increase in virtual-world activity relative to real-world activity. Some virtual experiences, on the other hand, may actually amplify demand for real-world experiences. A perfect example is the popularization of tourist destinations. The so-called “hype” around certain destinations arrives almost instantaneously, colliding with the limitations of local infrastructure — and in many cases leading to overcrowding and environmental damage. Especially in natural settings. Following this line of thinking, I want to say that the ability to do one’s grocery shopping online, order a ready-made meal, or have an entire month’s worth of food delivered every morning will not cause restaurants and grocery stores to close. The popularity of home-delivery solutions has become so great that, from being an “option,” it has become as normal as leaving home to eat or buy food. How comfortable will the satisfaction of this organically rooted need become, when all it requires is a thought generated in our minds — along with a command sent to a network that is part of our minds? The vision of the Singularity as presented by Ray Kurzweil does not excite me, but I can understand the vector of change toward which we are heading. And regardless of the idyllic visions of the world in which each of us would wish to live, the direction has been set: toward ever-greater digitalization of experience.

Like all things new and not fully understood, this may provoke fear. That is how our survival system works. We are naturally alert to lurking threats, clinging to what is proven and familiar. And at every stage of epoch-defining change, that change has been met with resistance and anxiety. The first factories were met with resistance. The concept of Artificial Intelligence is met with resistance today — even as it becomes an ever-larger part of our lives, simultaneously amplifying fear. Before the invention of the printing press in the 15th century, very few people could read books. Today, when illiteracy seems like an abstraction to us, we fear that the computer will rob us of the role of inventor — that it will strip us of creativity. Unlike the beginnings of anthropocentrism, today this fear is manipulated. And despite anxieties and concerns, major models such as ChatGPT, Gemini, and Claude are used by 2.42 billion active users every month (based on Manochi analysis, data from datareportal.com for April 2026). This is 30% of the entire population of our planet. Let us remember that the first publicly available prototype of ChatGPT was published in November 2022. Three and a half years later, nearly one third of the world’s population uses the technology. Gutenberg’s machine did not produce such a dynamic growth in reading literacy — around 1950, five hundred years after the invention of the printing press, the illiteracy rate among the world’s adult population was approximately 50%. The same report that captures the level of generative AI adoption shares another very interesting figure: as of April 2026, 6.12 billion people were using the Internet — giving 73.8% of the world’s population connected to the network to a greater or lesser degree.

At this point, I propose we reconsider the vector of change mentioned above. Looking at the dynamics of adaptation to new technologies, I dare suggest that what today sounds surreal — a direct connection between humans and the network (and artificial intelligence) — will happen faster than one might expect based on previous civilizational shifts. It is therefore worth considering how this pace of change will affect our experience of the world.

Part 03: Experiencing Nature. Nature and Experience.

If some of our everyday experiences can now be fully digitalized (shopping, human relationships, career, etc.), we must ask which other areas of our lives will undergo digital takeover. When thinking about experiencing nature, it is hard to imagine deriving pleasure from it in any way other than through direct, sensory contact. Yet technological development — which has progressed steadily from enabling phone calls as a substitute for face-to-face meetings — has already profoundly shaped the formation of human relationships today. In her book Alone Together (2011), Sherry Turkle shares research on relationships showing that technology has enabled new relational patterns in which people build bonds while maintaining a safe emotional distance. Technology promises us closeness without risk — we can be “together” without having to be truly present. The paradox: the more digital connections, the deeper the loneliness. People increasingly prefer contact mediated by a device because it gives the illusion of control over the relationship. This paradox has brought us to a point where loneliness is considered a global health threat (WHO, 2023). Leaving no space here — or elsewhere in this text — for personal opinion, I merely wish to note that the digitalization of human relationships on a global scale, and the consequent sense of loneliness, are both growing, and may lead to several potential scenarios. The first is an exponential deepening of both phenomena and their continuing positive correlation: the more new technologies allow for illusorily deeper relationships that reduce direct interaction, the more loneliness may ultimately be felt. The second scenario, as a counterpoint, is that a social trend shift occurs, and at some stage technological development has a negative effect on the sense of loneliness — or that humanity turns toward direct interaction, rejecting technology. From the perspective of the world as we have known it, such a scenario would be, colloquially speaking, “the healthiest.” It is a vision that would bring us back to what is known and safe — though it may prove to be an impossible nostalgic dream, given humanity’s one-directional drive: an eternal rush forward, regardless of what that might mean. There is also a third scenario. Current technologies allow us an emotional relationship with another person, perceived through sight and hearing. For this to be possible, one or more devices are required, functioning both as transmitters and receivers. If the vector of change does not shift course, it may turn out that communication technology requiring no intermediary device will emerge — and at that point our perception of relationships will change. If technology is directly connected to our brains, it may be able to engage more senses than just two. In that case, even without direct physical contact with another person, it may be possible to act upon our brains in such a way that we feel both smell and touch. This could mean that the correlation between technology and loneliness becomes negative. Of course, it may turn out that the correlation remains positive. There is also a fourth scenario, more civilizational than strictly technological: the growing epidemic of loneliness may reach such a scale that it becomes a new normal for human existence — accepted globally — and thereby ceases to be a subject of reflection at all. Following that logic, it would be the absence of loneliness that constitutes a deviation from the norm. All of this is, of course, hypothesis. For the purposes of further reflection, I wish to focus on the third scenario, as its technological foundation provides the most appropriate ground for a discussion of experiencing nature.

Scenario 03: the human brain coupled directly to technology

In the classical understanding of experiencing nature, this is possible through all the senses. We can observe and hear nature. But beyond that, we can feel it in terms of scent, just as we can feel it through touch. We can also taste it. This experience can be holistic, encompassing all senses at once — as when, on a rainy day, we decide to eat a blueberry we have just picked in a forest. Let us now imagine a situation in which, wherever we are on Earth, we feel the urge to smell wet moss — to recall that walk through the forest. If our brain — all its parts, including those responsible for receiving and processing information from receptors — is connected to technology, the smell of moss may appear in our minds without any moss being present for thousands of kilometers around us. The same may be true for any other stimulus reaching us from the outside world. And so the question arises: when human beings can, while remaining in an enclosed space, experience everything they value about being in nature, will they continue to do so in a direct, physical way? If we can smell blooming lilac, feel the softness of rose petals rubbing between our fingers, hear birdsong — will the realism of that experience be sufficiently satisfying? This may sound absurd — but if, at the beginning of the 20th century, one had told people that just over a hundred years later, instead of talking to each other, people would in many cases prefer contact through small rectangular devices, tapping in words as well as the emotions accompanying them in the form of smiling faces and other expressions (emoji), they would likely have diagnosed us as having lost our minds. Claiming today that in the near future those small rectangular devices will no longer be needed for mediated communication also sounds like something difficult to imagine. So if even such a fundamental aspect of life for our social species can be increasingly wrapped in layers of mediation, it is possible that every other experience will be equally easy to replace. Despite the increasingly visible trend toward the changes described, this does not mean that all people in the world participate in this change to the same degree. It may turn out that physical experience of nature is first abandoned by people who never felt a strong connection to it — people who may not seek the experience in any form. Direct intra-cerebral experience might also work the other way: people with a weak relationship with nature may find a new quality through it, engaging with nature physically in ways they never had before. Nature could become an object of mass devotion. There are other scenarios too. Direct-experience technology may, in its early stages of development, be relatively underdeveloped — and may therefore fail to be widely adopted. The perfect example is VR headsets, which were meant to transfer our social lives to the so-called metaverse. The flaws and limitations of that indirect-experience technology meant that the concept, despite great potential, never took hold. I dare suggest that direct experience arising from the coupling of the human brain with technology will have a far broader application than VR headsets right from the outset. I may, of course, be wrong.

Let us, however, look at direct intra-cerebral experience from a different angle. If it allows for the experience of various kinds of events without active participation in them in the real world, this may bring about changes in many areas of human life — not only in experiencing nature. These changes may reshape our surroundings. And here another question arises: in the face of these shifts, will we rebuild what no longer serves us, or will we abandon it? Either scenario may offer space for nature. In the first case, new solutions may allow for architectural projects that incorporate more green space. In the second scenario, nature would quite simply rearrange the space for itself — provided we do not stand in its way. Nature constantly proves that it manages perfectly well without us, and sometimes in spite of us. Will it, in the future, reclaim what we no longer need to experience through physical touch?

Part 04: Assumptions and Terminology

The NATUSTRITAL installation is an attempt to situate human experience in the near but undefined future. Having allowed myself certain predictions in the previous section, I undertake an effort to create an extreme homogeneity of the natural, industrial, and digital worlds.

natural — industrial — digital

natur_[[industri_[digit_]]_al

[nat___ustr___it_[al]]

natUSTRital / natUSTRITAL / NATUSTRITAL

[ral/rial/tal]

The development of the name is based on fragments of words and their placement within the whole. Starting with “natural” as the primordial form of human life. The middle section is formed by “industrial” — representing the most transformative shift in the human way of life. By drawing four letters from this word rather than three from “natural,” I position this space as the most natural form of contemporary human life. The third word, “digital,” constitutes not so much another form as an overlay on our existing experiences — hence the two letters “it,” which also lend the network an impersonal character. The whole is closed by the letters “al,” the common element shared by all three words.

Part 05: The NATUSTRITAL Installation — ULTRACE POLAND 2026: ETERNAL CULTURE

The NATUSTRITAL installation was created as a visual form for the reflections above — placing the human being within three realities simultaneously. At the heart of the installation is nature unto itself, enclosed within a geometric structure built from shipping containers — a symbol of the contemporary global industry. Nature within the industrial world. Extended by an interpretation of nature in the digital world, presented on an LED screen. Behind the digital forest, two chimneys of the Gdańsk combined heat and power plant bring the digital forest back down to its status as a product of industrialization. At the very center: a Toyota Corolla KE20 (1975) — a symbol of our relationship with the automobile as something far deeper than mere transportation. ULTRACE is an event of collective love for automotive culture. Will the future require us to experience that relationship in ways other than through direct, physical touch? The NATUSTRITAL installation is not an answer. It is a question: what will human reality look like when its three current constituent elements become increasingly blended — with the digital component growing in proportion relative to the natural?

artist: zulu kuki
car owner: zulu kuki
floral artist: Remigiusz Dorawa
wideo footage for movie: Szczepan Śledź
3D renders for movie: Maksym Wilczyński
movie edit: Szczepan Śledź
technical support: Grzegorz Próchnicki
illustration: Didiusz
production: zulu kuki
words: zulu kuki

special thanks to Ultrace Team for a trust: Adrian Kapica, Kacper Chmielowski & Michał Rabczuk