Ukraine is Me is 2022 series of self-portraits in blue and yellow, done at the residency in Dublin, 2022, is a statement of self-identity, as a Ukrainian. It is an attempt of the artist to feel alive again after the beginning of the full-scale invasion of russia to the territory of Ukraine through a return to a simple academic approach in state flag colors.
Michel Foucault introduced the concept of “heterotopia” (fr. Hétérotopie) to be able to reflect the semantic diversity, i.e. to present all the meanings embedded in the understanding of a space. Thus, heterotopia can be both a real place and a place close to a utopia, parallel to a real space (for example, a prison), the fullness and content of which allows you to bring the real place closer to the virtual. Foucault suggested, to better understand the differences in heterotopia, to imagine an image of a mirror that is similar to utopia, “…because it is a place without a place. In the mirror, I see myself where I am not – in a non-existent space, which opens virtually behind the plane.
The caustic phenomenon on the water’s surface is an ideal environment for contemplation. It resembles a web, the Internet, or mycelium, rhizome. It is also a metaphor for the impermanence of the world and changes, as well as of our worldview, life habits, and beliefs. The video also refers to the Kakhovka tragedy of 2023, which occurred due to the Russian occupiers undermining the dam of the reservoir.
In optics, a caustic or caustic network is the envelope of light rays reflected or refracted by a curved surface or object, or the projection of that envelope of rays on another surface. The caustic is a curve or surface to which each light is tangent, defining a boundary of an envelope of rays as a curve of concentrated light. The theory of caustics is directly related to one of the sections of modern mathematics — the theory of catastrophes.
The concentration of light, especially sunlight, can burn. The word caustic comes from the Greek καυστός, burnt, via the Latin causticus, burning.
Caustics occur not only in the propagation of light but also in several other wave phenomena. Ship waves can be considered caustics of gravity waves on water.
