Tech & Art

UNDER PRESSURE

Apr 2025

Concept

What do we carry every day? Keys, documents, small messes, traces of habits, coincidences, fears. We call them “essentials” – but in truth, they are self-portraits.

In Under Pressure, each participant empties the contents of their bag onto a table. They may reclaim only three items – the rest remains. Here. Under glass. Under the lens. Under pressure.

Each photograph is the result of this agreement: the subject knows their belongings will be exposed to the world. They make a conscious choice – what to keep, and what to surrender. What remains becomes vulnerable. And what is vulnerable becomes art.

Aesthetic

The images are processed as negatives, echoing the look of an X-ray. This is not just a stylistic gesture – it’s a reference to an era of constant inspection. There is no “hidden” here; everything is visible. Like at the airport. Like in life.

The glass compresses the items physically and metaphorically. Soft objects are flattened, fragile ones distort – pressure becomes both visible and symbolic. Shadows form quiet dramas in the mundan

Interactivity & Viewer Experience

The viewer becomes an investigator. They scan for clues, interpret fragments, construct identities. Who owned these things? A man or a woman? A student, a doctor, a driver, an artist? What secrets lie inside a crumpled note?

This instinct to search – it’s automatic. We’re used to watching, scanning, analyzing. We are not outside the system of observation — we are inside it. Under Pressure reveals this truth: it’s not just the objects under glass that are exposed, but our gaze itself.