Tobias Zielony

Maskirovka

* 1973 in Wuppertal, GER, lives and works in Berlin, GER
studied at the University of Wales in Newport, GBR, and the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig, GER

Unrest on Maidan Square. Cigarette to a fire drum. Driving tanks. A man putting on make-up. Soldiers in the snow. A man wearing VR glasses. People with masks at a techno party. Without sound, these picture flicker on the screen like a stroboscope. Without sound, but with a distinct rhythm created by five pictures a second. In his film Maskirovka, Tobias Zielony presents photos he took during his around eight-month stay in Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, where he portrayed the techno and LGBT scene in 2016/17. In his film, he mixes these portraits with war images in Ukraine, pictures of the protests on Maidan in February 2014, of war planes flying over Kiev and marching military units. They recall the street protests on Maidan in Kiev and Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Zielony reminds us that war is still being waged in Ukraine today. He uses the term Maskirovka (Russian: »masquerade«) in the sense of a war tactic of disguise, deception, and disinformation. A war tactic the Russian military became known for during the annexation of Crimea. The theme of masquerading also permeates the film, serving different purposes in different contexts. Protesters on Maidan, for example, protected themselves against tear gas by wearing masks. In the techno and LGBT, masquerading is used to represent and appropriate different identities. Does Zielony perhaps show the flight from the reality of war to other realities that are acted out through masquerades in Kiev at night? That interpretation would suggest itself, but he says: »For me, it is a different world that presents itself as travesty or fake reality.«

Sarah Hellings