Preformance

In an era where drone footage of real-time destruction floods digital space, we forget that behind each pixel is a life ended, a silence broken.

As a Ukrainian artist exposed daily to such footage, I use my position not to aestheticize violence, but to disrupt passive observation. In my hands are fragments of a missile that exploded over my roof, along with destroyed drones sent by my friends from the front lines.

The performance was part of RUFA's annual event, Performance Cluster, dedicated to performance art guided by artist and professor Marta Jovanović. Presented in collaboration with Yale University. Presented in collaboration with Yale University and drawing inspiration from Elise Morrison's book Discipline and Desire: Surveillance Technologies in Performance Art. In her work, Morrison examines how surveillance technologies-from drones and closed-circuit cameras to facial recognition-shape Communication, entertainment, and control in contemporary society. While these tools are often seen as symbols of power and discipline, they can also be subverted, turned into instruments for "looking back" at power itself.