AURA

Vladislav Iliev (Bulgaria)

One-Channel Video
Installation Projection
Mapping, Print, Drawing
2021

The installation "AURA" tries to ask society how it treats different people? Who are different? Does the vaccine make us different, what about wearing masks? AURA is an installation that reflects the mask as a cultural phenomenon.

Today people are used to the mask to protect, but it also reveals. The measurement of culture between people is based on hypocrisy, and hypocrisy is value in the form of a mask. The constant changing of masks distorts our own self-perception and self-esteem and ultimately distorts what normalcy looks like. The mask is a transition to the "new normal," but it is also a limitation at an unconscious level. And because it constrains us in our modernity, it gives us cause to reflect on its value. The ritual mask is a code and a symbol for the removal of limitations, while the present-day mask limits, protects and conceals.

The work linked historical symbolism (the ritual mask) and contemporary materialism (the digital mask) to the societal problem of ethics and equality to question how equal we are.