The name of the exhibition combines the notion of ‘syn-,’ a prefix that
means: acting or considered together; united, and ‘topia,’ which in Greek
means ‘place.’ In biology it is defined by the presence of encounter, or
exchange, of two species in the same habitat, close enough in order for
them to hybridize. The term was also used by the neuropsychologist
Ernst Poppel to describe a radical shift from summative to co-creative
combination of disciplines. Professor Piotr Zawojski made syntopia the
name of his book on cyberculture, where we can find the following
conclusion: ‘unlike utopia (syntopia is) a form of encounter of various
ideas, systems of knowledge, methodologies, different cognitive
disciplines and numerous forms of human activity. It is not an amalgam
in which each element loses its basic identity, but rather an example of
how, within the context of an interdisciplinary encounter, one can go
beyond the limits of specifics of their respective disciplines in order to
find for them a common ground.’ ( Zawojski Piotr, Cyberculture:
Syntopia of Art, Science and Technology. POLTEXT, Warsaw, 2010,
p.74).