Year: 2021
 Place: The project "Virtual borders of social isolation" was produced by artists as part of the international residency "Independence Without Borders" established by Carbon (Ukraine) in cooperation with InterAKT Initiative e.V. (Germany).
 Size: 32min 58 cek; video 16/9; Stereo; subtitles.
 Video work is multilingual: English, Ukrainian, Italian, Chinese and more.

 Visual art- Iryna Vorona (UKR)
 Concept 3d art- Pavlo Baltaziuk (UKR)
 Sound art- Mattia Bonafini (DE)

 Kindly supported by Alberto Harres:
 Voice material retrieved from Alberto Harres project "The Pandemic Archive of Voices"
 In this project we also used text information retrieved from "Library of artists stories" on mokonshu.art (Permission is granted)

Conception:

 The pandemic period gave us many "new opportunities" to experience life through the monitors of our gadgets. Prolonged avoiding of intimacy and contacts with others has left a noticeable imprint on communication. This is the question of how self-isolation has affected individual and society relations, we explore.
 Common to all was a feeling of anxiety, because it is not only the fear of catching the disease, but also the fear of others, the fact that because of you your loved ones could fall ill. Communicating with people during a pandemic was like physical discomfort. The feeling is very similar to walking on a sharp stone. It is this observation that formed the basis of the study we conducted during the residency “Independence Without Borders”. The project process and installation are designed to show the relationship between the individual and society, where stones play the role of unforeseen and not depending on people events.
 Obsessive self-isolation became a gift of fate for someone because society no longer required constant communication. This period could not last forever, but to return to normal life is now almost torture. "Virtual borders of social isolation" is designed to create communication with the viewer through a physical stimulus, thereby provoking a deep penetration into the emotional state. Although we are convinced that we can easily put ourselves in another person's shoes, is it really that easy to do?
 By working with memories, physical sensations and emotions in digital format, we create a virtual involvement in physical experience. Our brain reproduces feelings and memories, allowing us to receive the effect of presence. By perceiving visual information, the brain compares it with our knowledge, and when we observe physical sensations, we automatically "experience" them, feeling touch / taste / pain, etc., but on a subconscious level. Being on a sharp stone, it is not comfortable for you to stand and it is not easy to walk, you lose your balance every second, you are afraid to stumble, you feel discomfort and fear. Physical experience is very important for our research, because tactile discomfort is equated with psychological pressure from society.
 After all, despite the fact that we have the opportunity to carry out open communication without obstacles of distance and time, we are all closed indoors. Another question is how to return to normal life and communication after self-isolation. How to become a part of society again, which is perceived by you as a aggressive environment, what to do when you are not comfortable going outside and in contact with people. The virtual borders that we are currently building around ourselves form the future (in) dependence of man and society.

 During the presentation on 14 October, we were streaming online, creating an interaction at a distance, through an emotional state that hangs in the air, an atmosphere that is filled with inner experiences that overwhelm everyone who goes through social restrictions (freedom limitations).
 By transferring living performative practices to media art, we sought to convey a vacuum of isolation that filled our mental, personal, and public spaces, compressing them to the level of a molecule that could explode at any moment. Filling the closed space with energy, the vacuum of isolation finally explodes, with the emotion of rhythm, sound vibrations, words and phrases that flow from one space to another, transforming into one media art symphony.