In her short film Lolex Crucio, Lizaveta Hrydziushka lyrically explores the identity of a character who traverses a dreamscape and encounters various symbolic attributes. The process of how the artist identifies herself through the narrative in her work takes place through fantasy.
Fantasy can be considered a kind of avant-garde of reality, its vanguard. It allows us to talk about things that we do not yet see or do not want to see in reality, and yet are contained in it. Lizaveta’s story takes place on the borderline between fragile yet ambivalent introspection and the symbols of consumerism. In her work, the author also questions the line between what we sometimes consider natural, pure, or innocent and what is artificial and infected by civilization. In fact, these boundaries are themselves artificial and man-made. But Lizaveta aestheticizes these themes with means of expression that can be associated with a broader current of artistic strategy often referred to as emo-romanticism. The character, who seems melancholically detached from reality, walks aimlessly through the landscape, ingenuously accepting everything that is offered to her on her way.
The poetic voice-over narrative is rooted in an introspective examination of her own identity and relating to the fascinating reality around her. We are unsure whether the words spoken are a monologue or a dialogue. And actually, it probably doesn’t matter much. Sometimes we are telling someone something and we are actually saying it more to ourselves. The other person acts as a mirror, a mere part of the process in which we reveal ourselves to ourselves in a new form. The difference between monologue and dialogue is blurred.
František Fekete
The video is part of the Issue 01: Poetic of Indentities
