Coronovirus crisis has become an apogee of the artificial behaviors in our societies. Human fear boosted and provoked by the political aims challenged our long acquired habits and rights. For the sake of “humanity” and “stability” a lot of us have been imprisoned in our tiny concrete square meters and, what is more terrible, in our ability to analyze and react.
The media adopted an attitude of mass panic, systematically directing the interest of the citizens in the numbers and statistics of the pandemic without mentioning other issues.
What seemed to be at the beginning as a hard, tough but necessary emergency measure for a short period of time turned out to be a long play of money and control.
The break in usual activity was appreciated and romanticized by many of us, making us “free” for the online courses, time for ourselves and other “pluses” of being aside of the ruling authorities.
I will not deny the fact that at the beginning I also tried to find the positive sides of the taken actions. New areas of focus, communication ways… But having found myself in a strict 14 days quarantine in Poland because of coming from another country (at the time when there were no more restrictions for free walking, just an obligation to have the mask on) made me think of many other issues.
First, it involves the deprivation of liberty. Liberty is a good which belongs to everybody in the same way and has the same value for all. Thus the loss of liberty and freedom is, unlike fines, a punishment.
Right of privacy has also been questioned. Two times per day I was requested by the mobile quarantine application to take photos of myself.
Our everyday chores and even objects have changed. New idols appeared. New habits, new minds, new artificial us.
My series is a fragmental narration of the time in quarantine and ideas of the artificial world situation.