More Than Human War

single chanel video, 8:10 min.    
 

Governmental biopolitics, according to Foucault's ontology, pivots on the management of life and death. Sovereign powers decide on what life forms are to be sustained and what are to be eliminated, who is to live and who is to die. Military conflicts are normally approached from the perspective of human survival and sustainability. The anthropocentric gaze positions human suffering higher than that of other species in a hierarchical network of rights.The stateless state of natural governance is excluded from the geopolitical glossaries that often don't take into account nonhuman refugees and nationless living beings: bodies, materials and environments that are exposed to numerous forms of forced migration and incarceration caused by human politics of oppression and violence. What if we would cross the border of speciest perspective in the warfare politics?

Referring to the ongoing Russian invasion in the Ukraine the CGI film "More Than Human War” sets its focal point to the displacement of natural world, uncovering disturbed spaces and voicing out unspoken suffering of the animalistic actors beyond political agenda. Introducing drone footage, 3D scans of real destroyed objects from the Ukranian regions and interviews with Ukranian refugees, the project aims to establish a cultural space of dialogue, reframing the politics of the game medium into a tool of experimental journalism.

“...we have no states, no nations, no presidents, no premiers, no chiefs, no generals, no bosses, no bankers, no landlords, no wages, no charity, no police, no soldiers, no wars.” (Ursula K. Le Guin (1974): The Dispossessed)

To map out the matrix of violated habitats and bodies the use of 3D displacements is incorporated in the scenery’s imaginary, scaffolding the narrative.The project displays neither a speculative future nor a quite speculative present. It is an artistic attempt to evoke ethical compassion during a wartime for humans and nonhumans alike.