2022

Video, 12:29

“A catastrophe is a sudden disruption of the established order of things, caused by external or internal causes … … in the face of disaster, both intellectual and artistic activity are blatantly out of place. What they can offer to the consumer at this moment is not something of secondary importance for him, it has no value for him at all… After all, as appropriate a healer, shaman, mourner, buffoon turns out to be among those experiencing a disaster, as ridiculous the theorist of mass communications, post-structuralist critic, conceptual artist will be here”

(Victor Misiano 1997, 2022)

Stationary means of group protection (bunkers) for my generation seem to be outdated, lost their value, artifacts of the past, the need for which ceased to exist after the Cold War.

For the project I needed to find a declassified bunker that could serve as a location for filming. As soon as I entered my query into the search engine, I cringed. The first result of the search was a map showing which direction I should move in order to get to the nearest bunker. As it turned out “the artifact of the past” has not lost its relevance at all. We live in our illusory comfortable little world, protecting ourselves from reality with a psychological and material airbag, and at the same time even the search engine is already aware of how to act in case of a catastrophe.

However did artist is capable of at the moment? What kind of value for society the artist can represent in such conditions? It’s so much more than me. Ok, I’ll try to make a hopeless attempt to defend myself. I will put on a hazmat suit and go down to a safe depth so I can try to turn an uninhabited, never used shelter into something habitable, like cleaning a crime scene. Yes, my imaginary armor only gives the visibility of security, but this is enough for me to protect myself from direct contact with reality.

In the process armor gloves will be worn out, will get dirty. Contact with reality is never pleasant, but at least I made an attempt to interact with it. You are here to judge if my attempt is yet relevant and effective. How quickly will my armor be discarded and cease to protect? How quickly will my conception of reality begin to crumble?