Control Negative – the exercise in loss

Monika Masłoń’s project Control Negative is an exercise in loss. In this interactive installation, the viewers are invited to participate in a process during which they get to know the mechanisms of illusion, train in the lack of control and influence, observe what happens when they lose what they are used to. Using the VR technique, the author attempts to put the viewer in a state in which strong emotions – such as frustration, helplessness, anger and sadness – reveal the basic human mechanisms, including the illusory conviction of being able to control one’s life. The unreal world of the experience – a negative version of the real world – is a kind of training room for getting to know yourself and your emotions better. The user is led through consecutive chapters of the piece, which allow for a gradual transition from activity to contemplation.   

Monika Masłoń – a graduate of the Wł. Strzemiński Academy of Fine Arts in Łódź. She defended her diploma in 2008, in the Photography Studio under Prof. Grzegorz Przyborek and in the Photography and Video Studio led by Prof. Konrad Kuzyszyn. In 2011-2016, she was a doctoral student at the L. Schiller National Higher School of Film, Television and Theatre in Łódź, where, under the supervision of Prof. Józef Robakowski, she completed her doctoral dissertation See You Again. She is involved in artistic activities, mainly through realizations based on audiovisual material.