Lera Malchenko

One of the shortest subway systems in the world, without the crowds of passengers and intrusive advertising, retains purity of underground retro-futuristic city.

In the center of city Dnipro, Ukraine, during the 50 years abandoned hotel ‘PARUS’ (SAIL) is existing. It had to become the symbol of the grandiosity of Dnipropetrovsk as the homeland of the Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev. However, it has never been opened — the construction stopped on the eve of the collapse of the Soviet Union.

‘see also’ is a set of compressed images and feelings, collected during the artistic research of war images by Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. It focuses on burnt-out, compressed, pixelated, and blurred images, and tries to reveal the nature of those artifacts caused by distorted perception systems, the logic of war-time (self)censorship, and the politics of digital platforms.

On the beach or in the forest, when you close your eyes, you hear the sound of water, wind, rustling leaves, insects. You can still hear the motorboat, ringtone, highway, drone buzzing, plant. When you just listen, the sounds mix; gently comes the realization that all this nature is not the first or the second, it is the canvas, including you. But as soon as you open your eyes, you notice order everywhere.

The film focuses on the emotionality of social media and its role in the militarization of Ukrainian society. The ability of social media to capture emotions and retranslate them, turn emotional contagion into a closed collective practice, and the community — into a single organism capable of achieving real change. This form of collectivity, which develops on the basis of digital interaction, can have very different consequences. Where exactly is the line between solidarity and radicalization? How can empathy turn into hatred?