Damn 2020s: Level 1

The relatively calm, albeit “blind” 2010s have been replaced by the 2020s in Ukraine - an almost lost decade defined by wartime routine and shattered hopes for an easy, quiet, and peaceful life. As well as my own inability to find a place for myself in the context of a war from which there is no hiding.

I chose the aesthetics of old video games from the 2000s as one way of hyperfixation and distraction from reality, and as a kind of re-enactment of teenage experience, carried out using the W, S, A, and D keys. And I tried to visualize the main elements of everyday life in Ukrainian realities, such as anxiety, fear, chronic sleep deprivation, and uncertainty in the future. They do not allow you to move on and cause you to get stuck as if on the same level of a video game, in my case - one location.

The choice of a wide-angle lens, sometimes harsh lighting, and muted color saturation gives the false impression that you are looking at an AI-generated image. Still, the entire location, along with its fine details and the hero, are absolutely real, although modified for stylization.

In this series, a noname hero is shown in a creepy location in different outfits that mimic the character customization system in the game – like choosing a skin before starting the game. But it’s all the same person in the same space, as if changing the costume is the only thing that can be changed.

The poses and scenarios belong to a set of recurring dream motifs for me–such as freezing in a liminal space amidst endless stairwells, becoming transfixed by mirrored ceilings, or hiding and lying beneath or amidst furniture with no way to escape.

The collection of photos is currently in the ‘work in progress’ stage and will later be supplemented with a series of photos from various closed spaces and characters with their game scenarios.

The project was created with the support of a grant from Documenting Ukraine.