ugly scenes. nuances

The work Ugly Scenes. Nuances. 1.2. is a two-sided monumental structure approximately three metres high. Its scale and verticality refer to the language of memorial architecture and, in particular, to the tradition of the post-Soviet monument as an instrument for shaping collective memory. At the same time, the monumental form is used to examine the mechanisms through which the memory of violence is translated into a system of signs and quantitative indicators.

One side of the work is constructed around a repeating graphic element resembling an endless bureaucratic list. The absence of names is fundamental here: individual biography is replaced by a formal structure of accounting. This form refers to administrative modes of representing war losses, in which human life gradually becomes a statistical unit. As the scale of a conflict increases, individual deaths become incorporated into the language of counting, reporting, and demographic data. The repetition of the rows visualises the process of formalisation while simultaneously creating a sense of its potential infinity. The other side of the monument consists of cells into which fragments of maple carving, covered with black lacquer, are inserted. Their surface resembles pulsation, the rhythmic movement of organic matter, or the structure of the human body. In contrast to the statistical language of the first side, a bodily dimension of memory emerges here. The materiality of the wood and the sensation of pulsation return physical presence to the abstracted image of loss, connecting it to an engagement with the philosophy of Gilles Deleuze, particularly with the concepts of difference and repetition. As a result, the two surfaces of the monument offer different models of representing repetition. On one side, repetition is associated with classification, accounting, and the reproduction of identical units. On the other, it acquires a material and physiological character, becoming a process of transformation of the surface. The layers of reality and its perception are interconnected in this work: the statistical representation of loss coexists with the material trace of the body.

At the base of the work is a small wooden body of a bird, placed inside a transparent acrylic cube. The species of the bird cannot be identified with certainty. This uncertainty continues the motif of anonymity present in the bureaucratic list. Here, the problem of identification takes on a physical form: before the viewer is a body that cannot be connected to a specific history. The image of the bird originates from Michael Haneke’s film Das weiße Band–Eine deutsche Kindergeschichte (The White Ribbon, 2009), which contains an episode featuring a bird pierced by surgical scissors. The frame I captured from the film becomes the initial visual material for this element of the work. The position of the bird and the surgical scissors inserted into its body introduce the motif of division into the work. The surgical instrument implies precision and controlled intervention. In the context of the work, it acquires an additional meaning connected to the geopolitical division of space and to the way abstract decisions concerning territories and borders affect losses measured in human bodies. The geopolitical map exists as a system of lines and coordinates, yet the consequences of these lines manifest themselves in the injury, displacement, and destruction of bodies. The transparent acrylic cube surrounding the bird additionally introduces a religious context. Its form resembles a reliquary, intended to preserve remains and confer a special status upon them. Here, however, an anonymous body, deprived of a name and a defined identity, is preserved. The reliquary becomes a form of preserving memory under conditions in which it is impossible to establish the identity or affiliation of the body. Thus, the religious tradition of venerating remains is brought together with contemporary practices of memorialising the unknown and the missing.

The relationship between spatial organisation, military logic, and the body can be examined through the writings of Paul Virilio, devoted to the interrelation of architecture, military technology, speed, and the organisation of space. In his work, military logic is considered as a factor in the formation of spatial regimes that determine movement, visibility, access, and borders. Architecture in this context becomes part of systems for controlling bodies and territories. For Virilio, technology is inseparable from the possibility of catastrophe: every technological invention simultaneously creates its own form of accident. This interrelation is particularly significant for a work concerned with war, since military infrastructure simultaneously organises space and produces the conditions for its destruction. A system created to control movement, territory, and bodies contains within itself the possibility of their injury and destruction. In the work, this transition from an organised structure to an injured body is manifested through the relationship between monumental architecture, the geometry of division, and the figure of the bird.

The monumental structure of the work addresses this dual function of architecture. On the one hand, it belongs to the history of memorial form and is connected to practices of preserving memory. On the other, its geometry and vertical organisation of space refer to disciplinary structures through which bodies are distributed, classified, and directed. Memorial architecture thus becomes part of a broader historical context of spatial systems of control, mobilisation, and division. The work therefore brings together several historically distinct systems of representation: the bureaucratic register, memorial architecture, the religious reliquary, and the material fixation of bodily movement. Their coexistence makes it possible to consider the memory of war as a process of continual transformation between different forms of representation. From the statistical indicator to the architectural image, and from the architectural image to the physical body.

The engagement with Deleuze and Virilio makes it possible to examine this structure along two interconnected directions. Deleuze’s concept of difference and repetition provides a basis for understanding carving as a process in which repetition simultaneously fixes and transforms matter. Virilio, in turn, provides a theoretical perspective for analysing monumental form through the history of military architecture, the technological organisation of space, and the production of catastrophe.

In this context, Ugly Scenes. Nuances. addresses the question of how visual and material forms participate in producing a distance between an event and its perception. The bureaucratic list creates distance through quantitative language, the monument through the standardisation of memory, and the reliquary through the isolation of the body. The carving, by contrast, redirects attention to the physical process and the materiality of the surface (the living body). The work explores the transition from the individual body to the statistical unit and back again, from the abstract number to the material trace of human presence.