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ABSTRACT
In this article, which blends aspects of scholarly inquiry, opinion writing, travel reporting, and exhibition critique, the author explores the new temporal condition of Ukrainian culture in a state of emergency during the Russo-Ukrainian war. Specifically, he focuses on the noticeable shift from a permanent to a transient mode of existence of artistic activities, which piqued his interest during his visit to Kyiv in summer 2023. He examines the experience of time amidst the war, its weaponization, and its role in the establishment of hegemony – subsuming the victim within the temporal regime of the aggressor. First, guided by Nikolai Bakhtin’s theoretical framework, he characterizes Russia’s temporal regime as emblematic of the epic time of the Absolute Past and proposes the dynamics of kairos as an effective subversion of the aggressor’s temporal modality. He then uses this theoretical framework to analyze the following cultural artifacts that he experienced firsthand during his visit: an exhibition by contemporary Ukrainian artist Zhanna Kadyrova at the Pinchuk Art Centre; the Module of Temporality by Balbek Bureau; and the Babyn Yar Synagogue by Swiss architect Manuel Herz.
Résumé
Dans cet article qui combine l’enquête scientifique, l’essai, le récit de voyage et la critique d’exposition, l’auteur explore la nouvelle condition temporelle de la culture ukrainienne en état d’urgence pendant la guerre russo-ukrainienne. Il se concentre sur le passage manifeste des activités artistiques d’un mode d’existence permanent à un mode d’existence transitoire, qui a suscité son intérêt lors de sa visite à Kiev à l’été 2023. Il analyse l’expérience du temps pendant la guerre, sa militarisation et son rôle dans l’établissement d’un discours hégémonique, subsumant la victime dans le régime temporel de l’agresseur. Tout d’abord, guidé par le cadre théorique de Bakhtine, il caractérise le régime temporel de la Russie comme emblématique du temps épique du passé absolu et propose la dynamique du kairos comme subversion efficace de la modalité temporelle de l’agresseur. Ensuite, il utilise ce cadre théorique pour analyser les artefacts culturels suivants dont il a fait l’expérience au cours de sa visite : une exposition de l’artiste ukrainienne contemporaine Zhanna Kadyrova au Centre d’art Pinchuk; le Module de temporalité de Balbek Bureau; et la Synagogue Babyn Yar de l’architecte suisse Manuel Herz.
Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).
Notes
1. UNESCO, “Damaged Cultural Sites.”
2. Bakhtin, “Epic and Novel,” 22.
3. Andriy Kostin (@AndriyKostinUa), “For as long as it takes,” Twitter post, 19 November 2023, 5:48 p.m., https://twitter.com/AndriyKostinUa/status/1726371863201219039.
4. Hartog, Regimes of Historicity.
5. See Foucault, Discipline and Punish; Anderson, Imagined Communities; Osborne, Politics of Time.
6. Spivak, In Other Worlds; Mignolo, Darker Side.
7. Benjamin, Selected Writings, 395; Griffin, Fascist Century.
8. Coalson, “Nasty, Repressive, Aggressive – Yes.”
9. Dobrenko, Pozdnii stalinism: Estetika politiki, 366.
10. Snyder, Road to Unfreedom, 36.
11. See note 2 above, 22.
12. Ibid.
13. Ibid.
14. Ibid., 23.
15. Ibid., 21.
16. Ibid., 23.
17. Riabtchouk, “Russkii Robinzon.”
18. Atamanov, The Snow Queen (Snezhnaya Koroleva).
19. Respectively, Riabtchouk, “Toxic Spell”; Roth, “Ukraine-Russia.”
20. Yurchak, Everything was Forever.
21. Bakhtin, Epic and Novel, 22.
22. White, Kaironomia, 18.
23. For Julia Kristeva, “the word kairos refers to the point that touches the end, suitability, appropriateness, the dangerous critical point, the advantage, the right moment,” Kristeva, Sense and the Non-Sense, 222. For Antonio Negri, “kairos is the modality of time through which being opens itself, attracted by the void at the limit of time, and thus decides to fill that void,” Negri, Time for Revolution, 152. Giorgio Agamben compares kairos with Walter Benjamin’s Messianic time, see Agamben, “Time That Is Left.” Valery Podoroga asserts that “kairos […] actualizes time, casting it away from the habitual paths. But even more important is its instantaneity, which defines the moment of actualization, always explosive and sudden, opening the rupture, the breach in the world,” Podoroga, Kairos. Critical Moment, 12. The concept of kairos is often contrasted with chronos, which is understood as “empty, homogeneous time” – a serialized, linear time of mechanical reproduction, a time of “meanwhile” (in Benedict Anderson’s sense). For Frank Kermode, kairos is a point in time “charged with a meaning derived from its relation to the end,” Kermode, Sense of an Ending, 47.
24. See note 21 above, 25.
25. “What we might call that ‘affective-gap’, or ‘hesitancy’ as Henri Bergson understood it, between stimulus and response, which in itself allows creativity to arise,” O’Sullivan, Art Encounters, 37. For a particularly rich discussion of kairos as a tool of epistemological inquiry that influenced my analysis, see Negri, Time for Revolution; and Cocker, “Kairos Time.”
26. Poulakos, Sophistical Rhetoric, 61.
27. Berman, All that is Solid.
28. See note 22 above, 14.
29. Balbek Bureau, “MOT.”
30. Chalk et al., Archigram: The Book.
31. See note 29 above.
32. Ibid.
33. Giedion, Architecture You and Me, 48.
34. Agamben, “Time that is Left.”
35. Ibid., 10.
36. Ibid., 12.
37. Ibid.
38. Herz, “Babyn Yar, the Holocaust.”
39. Manuel Herz Architects, “Babyn Yar Synagogue.”
40. See note 38 above.
41. Ibid.
42. Benjamin, Selected Writings, 397.
43. See note 34 above.
44. Tillich, Protestant Era, 33.
45. See note 38 above.
46. See note 39 above.
47. Higgins, “‘This is Our Reality’.”
48. Jencks and Silver, Adhocism, 20.
49. Bakhtin, “Epic and Novel,” 23.
50. Ruban, “R3.”
51. Virilio, Lost Dimension.
52. PinchukArtCentre, “Video Tour.”
53. Virilio, “Art, Speed and Cinematic.”
54. Podoroga, “Explosion and Cutting Edge,” 26.
55. See note 22 above, 13.
56. Le Corbusier, “Tapisseries Muralnomad.”
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Alexandre Zaezjev
Alexandre Zaezjev is a film and media researcher, course lecturer, and multimedia artist currently pursuing his doctoral studies at McGill University. Ever since completing his MA thesis on the role of new media in the Ukrainian Euromaidan Revolution at the University of Geneva, Switzerland, he has been delving into the cultural and political landscape of the post-Soviet region. His PhD dissertation project examines how major traumas of the region’s twentieth-century history, such as the Holocaust and the Stalinist repressions, have been addressed in two site-specific projects by contemporary artist and film director Ilya Khrzhanovsky – the Babyn Yar Holocaust Memorial Center (Kyiv, Ukraine) and the multimedia project DAU (Kharkiv, Ukraine). Through his research, generously supported by the FRQSC doctoral scholarship, he aims to understand the potential of site-specific artistic practices in processing historical trauma in the post-witness era.