HOW LONG IS WAR

immersive experience on what war does to time, and what wartime does to human identities

hi, my name is vitya vilisov, and this is my performance lecture HOW LONG IS WAR. I do what can be roughly called artistic research, including performative lectures and documentary projects. all of 2022 and 2023 I was researching war — writing journalistic articles + released a documentary film NEW TYPES OF WEAPON, outlining a critical theory of new wars.

since the outbreak of the war in Ukraine, I, like many other people, have lived with a sense that time has broken. war is a hyper-event that painfully unites us around the expectation of its end, radically changing not only our sense of the present, but also our imagined future and what we think about the past. war changes who we are - even if it has not physically touched us.

what war has done to my personal sense of time has been quite traumatic, — that's the reason I wanted to take a closer look at the mechanisms by which this happens. drawing on texts [bibliography] by researchers from sociology, philosophy, anthropology, phenomenology, and other fields, I made a lecture performance about what war does to time, and what war time does to human identities, personal and collective.

HOW LONG IS WAR

trailer #1

it's an immersive experience in a 3D space, made on the unreal engine, combining performance, lecture and real-time cinematography; it was initially accessible via browser for group sessions, and now is available as a standalone app for Win/Mac; it lasts just over eighty minutes and consists of three parts:

the first is about identity: why it is a relatively new invention, how identities are formed and constructed, why they are necessary for orientation in the world, how personal and collective identities mutually define each other; how identities are related to language and capitalism, how they change in different contexts, why identity is a crucial political locus and means of reorganizing the world, and how it can be used for both solidarization and oppression

HOW LONG IS WAR

trailer #2

this project was premiered 25.11.2023 as a group experience and had several group seances; from now it's available for individual walkthrough as an Win/Mac app; experience is in Russian with Ru/Eng subtitles

it's also available in a free video version

there are two types of tickets, the only difference is your intention. please leave the actual email, after payment you'll get the mail with the download link

just download the app

what you do seems important for me, especially researching war these times, so I want to support your chances of continuing doing that

€10

€25

thanks for reading this far; I've put a huge effort into this project and would love it if you could share it. if you'd like to follow my work further, you can subscribe to me on inst, a main telegram channel or non-fiction books channel. thanks!

✨ vilisov '23

books

1. Åhäll, Linda, and Thomas Gregory, eds. 2015. Emotions, Politics and War. 0 ed. Routledge
2. Assmann, Aleida, and Sarah Clift. 2016. Shadows of Trauma: Memory and the Politics of Postwar Identity. First edition. New York: Fordham University Press.
3. Assmann, Aleida, 2020. Is Time out of Joint? On the Rise and Fall of the Modern Time Regime. Ithaca: Cornell University Press : Cornell University Library.
4. Azulai, Ariʾelah. 2011. From Palestine to Israel: A Photographic Record of Destruction and State Formation, 1947 - 50. London: Pluto Press.
5. Coulmas, Florian. 2019. Identity: A Very Short Introduction. First edition. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.
6. Fukuyama, Francis. 2018. Identity: The Demand for Dignity and the Politics of Resentment. First edition. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
7. Haider, Asad. 2018. Mistaken Identity: Race and Class in the Age of Trump. London Brooklyn, NY: Verso.
8. Halewood, Louis, Adam Luptak, and Hanna Smyth, eds. 2019. War Time: First World War Perspectives on Temporality. Abingdon, Oxon ; New York, NY: Routledge.
9. Hall, Stuart, and Paul Du Gay, eds. 2011. Questions of Cultural Identity. first published, reprinted. Los Angeles London New Delhi Singapore Washington DC: SAGE.
10. Han, Byung-Chul. 2017. The Scent of Time: A Philosophical Essay on the Art of Lingering. English edition. Cambridge, UK ; Medford, MA: Polity.
11. Hanska, Jan. 2020. War of Time: Managing Time and Temporality in Operational Art. Cham: Springer International Publishing.
12. Ismael, Jenann. 2021. Time: A Very Short Introduction. First edition. Oxford, United Kingdom: Oxford University Press.
13. Kürti, Emese, and Zsuzsa László, eds. 2021. 200 What Will Be Already Exists: Temporalities of Cold War Archives in East-Central Europe and Beyond. 1st ed. Bielefeld, Germany: transcript Verlag.
14. Mueller-Hirth, Natascha, and Sandra Rios Oyola, eds. 2018. Time and Temporality in Transitional and Post-Conflict Societies. 1st ed. Routledge.
15. Todd, Jennifer. 2018. Identity Change after Conflict: Ethnicity, Boundaries and Belonging in the Two Irelands. Cham: Springer International Publishing.

papers

1. Abazi, Enika, and Albert Doja. 2018. “Time and Narrative: Temporality, Memory, and Instant History of Balkan Wars.” Time & Society 27(2): 239–72.

2. Auerbach, William. 2015. “Times at War: Commentary on Gentile’s ‘Troubling Temporalities.’” Studies in Gender and Sexuality 16(1): 44–48.

3. Bauman, Zygmunt. 2011. “From Pilgrim to Tourist – or a Short History of Identity.” In Questions of Cultural Identity, 1 Oliver’s Yard, 55 City Road, London EC1Y 1SP United Kingdom: SAGE Publications Ltd, 18–36.

4. Bowman, Glenn. 2014. “Violence before Identity: An Analysis of Identity Politics.” The Sociological Review 62(2_suppl): 152–65.

5. Carter, Jennifer, and David Hollinsworth. 2020. “The Lies That Bind: Rethinking Identity. Creed, Country, Colour, Class, CultureKwame AnthonyAppiah, 2018. London: Profile Books. 256 Pp. ISBN 9781781259238. eISBN 97811782833901, AUD $29.99.” Geographical Research 58(1): 118–20.

6. Conley, Robin. 2008. “‘At the Time She Was a Man’: The Temporal Dimension of Identity Construction.” PoLAR Political and Legal Anthropology Review 31(1): 28–47.

7. Demir, Recep. 2011. “European Identity and the Second World War - Edited by M. Spiering and M. Wintle: BOOK REVIEWS.” JCMS: Journal of Common Market Studies 49(6): 1364–1364.

8. Derejko, Nathan. 2021. “A Forever War? Rethinking the Temporal Scope of Non-International Armed Conflict.” Journal of Conflict and Security Law 26(2): 347–76.

9. Diamond, Lisa M., and Molly Butterworth. 2008. “Questioning Gender and Sexual Identity: Dynamic Links Over Time.” Sex Roles 59(5–6): 365–76.

10. Drozdzewski, Danielle, Emma Waterton, and Shanti Sumartojo. 2019. “Cultural Memory and Identity in the Context of War: Experiential, Place-Based and Political Concerns.” International Review of the Red Cross 101(910): 251–72.

11. El Masri, Yafa. 2020. “72 Years of Homemaking in Waiting Zones: Lebanon’s ‘Permanently Temporary’ Palestinian Refugee Camps.” Frontiers in Sociology 5: 587063.

12. Gokmenoglu, Birgan. 2022. “Temporality in the Social Sciences: New Directions for a Political Sociology of Time.” The British Journal of Sociology 73(3): 643–53.

13. Gunnewiek, Kato Klein. “The Urbanisation Process of the Jabal Al-Hussein Refugee Camp.”

14. Haller, Max. “WAR AND NATIONAL IDENTITY.”

15. Hancock, Peter A., and Gerald P. Krueger. 2010. “Hours of Boredom, Moments of Terror: Temporal Desynchrony in Military and Security Force Operations: (530462011-001).”

16. Holmqvist, Göran. “Inequality and Identity: Causes of War?”

17. Hom, Andrew R, and Luke Campbell. 2022. “Wartime in the 21st Century.” International Relations 36(4): 525–46.

18. Hom, Written Andrew, and Ty Solomon. “Timing, Identity, and Emotion in International Relations.” International Relations.

19. Humlebæk, Carsten. 2018. “National Identities: Temporality and Narration.” Genealogy 2(4): 36.

20. Idalovichi, Israel. 2004. “Generating Social Identity in Times of War and Terror.” Social Identities 10(5): 619–28.

21. Jansen, Stef. 2014. “On Not Moving Well Enough: Temporal Reasoning in Sarajevo Yearnings for ‘Normal Lives.’” Current Anthropology 55(S9): S74–84.

22. Jenkins, Scott. 2012. “Time and Personal Identity in Nietzsche’s Theory of Eternal Recurrence: Nietzsche’s Theory of Eternal Recurrence.” Philosophy Compass 7(3): 208–17.

23. Kaldor, Mary. 2013. “Identity and War.” Global Policy 4(4): 336–46.

24. Kulyk, Volodymyr. 2016. “National Identity in Ukraine: Impact of Euromaidan and the War.” Europe-Asia Studies 68(4): 588–608.

25. Kuzio, Taras. “'Eastern Ukraine’ Is No More: War and Identity in Post-Euromaidan Dnipropetrovsk.” International Relations.

26. Lowe, E. J., and Harold W. Noonan. 1988. “Substance, Identity and Time.” Proceedings of the Aristotelian Society, Supplementary Volumes 6: 61–100.

27. Mather, Ronald, and Jill Marsden. 2004. “Trauma and Temporality: On the Origins of Post-Traumatic Stress.” Theory & Psychology 14(2): 205–19.

28. McGrattan, Cillian. 2020. “Jennifer Todd. Identity Change after Conflict: Ethnicity, Boundaries and Belonging in the Two Irelands. Palgrave Studies in Compromise after Conflict. Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019. Pp. 279. $99.99 (Cloth).” Journal of British Studies 59(2): 461–62.

29. McIntosh, Christopher. 2020. “Theorizing the Temporal Exception: The Importance of the Present for the Study of War.” Journal of Global Security Studies 5(4): 543–58.

30. Mcintosh, Christopher. “War through a Temporal Lens.” International Relations.

31. Messinger, Seth D. 2010. “Rehabilitating Time: Multiple Temporalities among Military Clinicians and Patients.” Medical Anthropology 29(2): 150–69.

32. Mignolo, Walter D., and Madina V. Tlostanova. 2006. “Theorizing from the Borders: Shifting to Geo- and Body-Politics of Knowledge.” European Journal of Social Theory 9(2): 205–21.

33. Minton, Amy R. 2006. “Civil War Time: Temporality and Identity in America, 1861-1865.” 8.

34. Morrigan, Clementine. 2017. “Trauma Time: The Queer Temporalities of the Traumatized Mind.” Somatechnics 7(1): 50–58.

35. Moynagh, Maureen. 2017. “The War Machine as Chronotope: Temporality in Child-Soldier Fiction.” Comparative Literature 69(3): 315–37.

36. Mueller‐Hirth, Natascha. 2017. “Temporalities of Victimhood: Time in the Study of Postconflict Societies.” Sociological Forum 32(1): 186–206.

37. Ozoliņa‐Fitzgerald, Liene. 2016. “A State of Limbo: The Politics of Waiting in Neo‐liberal Latvia.” The British Journal of Sociology 67(3): 456–75.

38. Petrig, Anna. 2009. “The War Dead and Their Gravesites.” International Review of the Red Cross 91(874): 341–69.

39. Pezzini, Isabella. 2023. “Trajectories of Identity, Difference, and Alterity in the Context of the Russian-Ukrainian War.” Actes Sémiotiques (128).

40. Roman, Esqueda A. 1994. “Remarks on Fabian’s Time and the Other.” Visual Anthropology 7(2): 147–55.

41. Sagbakken, Mette, Ida M. Bregård, and Sverre Varvin. 2020. “The Past, the Present, and the Future: A Qualitative Study Exploring How Refugees’ Experience of Time Influences Their Mental Health and Well-Being.” Frontiers in Sociology 5: 46.

42. Salisbury, Laura. 2020. “‘Between-Time Stories’: Waiting, War and the Temporalities of Care.” Medical Humanities 46(2): 96–106.

43. Schwartz, Barry. 1974. “Waiting, Exchange, and Power: The Distribution of Time in Social Systems.” American Journal of Sociology 79(4): 841–70.

44. Shapiro, Michael J. 2015. “Hiroshima Temporalities.” Thesis Eleven 129(1): 40–56.

45. Sider, Theodore. 2000. “Identity Over Time.” Philosophical Books 41(2): 81–89.

46. Smith, Anna Marie. 2010. “Identity Before Identity Politics by Linda Nicholson.” Constellations 17(2): 369–72.

47. Stolorow, Robert D. 2003. “Trauma and Temporality.” Psychoanalytic Psychology 20(1): 158–61.

48. Tada, Mitsuhiro. 2019. “Time as Sociology’s Basic Concept: A Perspective from Alfred Schutz’s Phenomenological Sociology and Niklas Luhmann’s Social Systems Theory.” Time & Society 28(3): 995–1012.

49. Tapinç, Merve Rümeysa. 2014. “Perception and Time-Experience in Merleau-Ponty and Bergson.” Kaygı. Uludağ Üniversitesi Fen-Edebiyat Fakültesi Felsefe Dergisi 0(23): 163.

50. Thornton, Robert. 2002. “The Peculiar Temporality of Violence: A Source of Perplexity about Social Power.” KronoScope 2(1): 41–69.

51. Tlostanova, Madina. 2007. “THE IMPERIAL-COLONIAL CHRONOTOPE: Istanbul-Baku-Khurramabad.” Cultural Studies 21(2–3): 406–27.

52. ———. 2017. “TRANSCENDING THE HUMAN/NON-HUMAN DIVIDE: The Geo-Politics and Body-Politics of Being and Perception, and Decolonial Art.” Angelaki 22(2): 25–37.

53. ———. 2020. “OF BIRDS AND TREES: RETHINKING DECOLONIALITY THROUGH UNSETTLEMENT AS A PLURIVERSAL HUMAN CONDITION.”

54. “Ukrainian Identity in Time of War: More Salient and Radical.” IWM WEBSITE.

55. Viebach, Julia. 2019. “Of Other Times: Temporality, Memory and Trauma in Post-Genocide Rwanda.” International Review of Victimology 25(3): 277–301.

56. Virilio, Paul. 1995. “Speed and Information: Cyberspace Alarm!” CTheory: 8/27/1995-8/27/1995.

57. Volodymyr Kulyk: Ukrainian Identity in the Time of War. 2023. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=So1dEpIJNro (October 12, 2023).

58. Walsh, Dawn. 2019. “Identity Change after Conflict: Ethnicity, Boundaries and Belonging in the Two Irelands: By Jennifer Todd, London, Palgrave Macmillan, 2018, 279 Pp., €83.19, ISBN 978-3-319-98502-2.” Irish Political Studies 34(4): 617–18.

59. Walzer, Michael. “Reflections on Jus Post Bellum.”

60. Weigert, Andrew J. 2010. “Metatheoretical Theses on Identity, Inequality, Time, and Hope: Toward a Pragmatic Cosmopolitanism: Metatheoretical Theses on Identity, Inequality, Time, and Hope.” Journal for the Theory of Social Behaviour 40(3): 249–73.

61. Wilson, Andrew. 2023. “Ukraine at War: Baseline Identity and Social Construction.” Nations and Nationalism: nana.12986.

62. Wilson, Anne E., Gregory R. Gunn, and Michael Ross. 2009. “The Role of Subjective Time in Identity Regulation.” Applied Cognitive Psychology 23(8): 1164–78.

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