In January 2020 I started developing a series of short narrative videos that reflect on the COVID-19 pandemic crisis as it emerged. Initially, I drew on moments from my daily life such as the fear I seemed to evoke when wearing a protecting mask on the subway in early February and witnessing distraught phone conversations at the park about family members falling ill. As the crisis has unfolded my cinematic approach has shifted from realism to sci-fi fantasy to fractured experimental multi-channel forms, simulating the breakdown in my perception of our social world as it has endured a rupture and reformulation. To date, the series includes the following episodes: “Trash Can” and “Virus”, “Lost in Nothingness” and “Steak”.   

   The first episode, The“Trash Can”, takes an ordinary object as its centerpiece, endowing it with supernatural powers to replace material possessions. The symbol of the trash can come to represent materialistic desires the main protagonist has. The protagonist of “Virus” is seen sitting on a park bench on a sunny day when her equilibrium is suddenly disturbed by a phone call.  Materialistic desires are brought to with simpler family values that are now out of reach like face to face meetings, visiting, hugs, and interaction. She is far from her family, and because of the sickness will not be able to be with them for a long time.  

   “Lost in Nothingness” is a three-channel video installation that remixes select “memories” from my earlier episodes in the series with stock footage of nature and outer space. This montage of this appropriated footage meant to convey the idea of a mind flow when a person is trying to release from the stress. The multi-screen approach allowed jme to speak three lines simultaneously. The left-hand screen shows a woman who is sleeping restlessly, the middle screen includes the images from the protagonist’s mind and the right screen gives the footage of news addressing the pandemic crisis. The associative images of the news, empty streets and people wearing masks depict the main protagonist’s longing for emptiness – she wants to get away from the troubles and hassle of her life, to feel the vastness of nature and its potentially curing effects. As my formal approach has evolved to encompass non-linear narratives, “Lost in Nothingness” includes vestigial images drawn from the protagonist’s mind in the earlier narrative short films. Ladislav Kesner argued that the audience is able to understand the artistic vision through personal experience (2014), the limitations, that we all experience due to pandemic crisis, is lived by the protagonist on the screen. The main protagonist represents a typical young person living in an urban society with the issues and problems, such as sickness and the distance she cannot overcome, and in order to find her inner peace, she allows her mind to go beyond regular needs – the object, which she was throwing in the trash can, into desires nothingness to have some rest.

   The episode “Steak” was inspired by “El Hoyo”, directed by Galder Gaztelu-Urrutia – a thriller with a deep philosophical representation of the social layers and uneven distribution of the sources within I use the steak is a symbol of consumer indulgence because although food is a necessity, it is a clearly luxury food. The narration about the lack of medical supplies during the pandemic on the background contrasts the calm manner of steak dinner. Following Amelia Jones’ understanding of the actors’ bodies in the artistic project (2012), the chewing protagonist is actively used in the project, rather than statically. Visually we witness an expensive dinner being consumed without any regrets in contrast with the audio track which describes the lack of necessary medical supplies.

   My protagonists in both narrative and experimental phases of this project represented as trapped in the borders of society, yet they inhabit clichés, longings for finding their true selves. The multi-channel approach gives different perspectives to the audience, allowing the audience to find the linkage with their experience. Such an approach will give a wider range of ideas to the viewer. Using every-day objects as symbols of certain meanings, I relate to Adam Linder’s dance theatre, which shows the essence of every-day events and objects (Jackson, 2020. I believe the modernist of the individuality isolated within a crowd is worth revision at this particular moment. Through visualization of the isolation crisis, the viewers will experience catharsis, ultimately influencing the trauma. The protagonists, who are depicted in an urban society, demonstrate various challenges, which most of the viewers can relate to, specifically because of the current pandemic crisis.