This series of live-video essays was developed in the context of the 16th edition of the Tactics and Practice conference “Are you a Software Update?”. The conference was organised by Aksioma, Institute for Contemporary Art and took place in Ljubljana on February 25th, 2025.
The videos are the outcome of a live streaming performance by Donatella Della Ratta, Lesia Kulchynska, and Iva Ramuš Cvetkovič and THE VOID.
As conflicts escalate worldwide, it feels like peace has become a naive fantasy—displaced by militarisation, populism, and a constant state of anxiety. In this session, Donatella Della Ratta, Lesia Kulchynska, and Iva Ramuš Cvetkovič explore how geopolitics—once perceived as distant—now shape our daily realities, influenced by historical narratives, propaganda, AI-generated content, and rigid frameworks. By examining these forces, the speakers aim to glimpse new ways of envisioning possible futures.
Transformation of War, Fragmentation of Law and Dominance of Technology
Throughout history, wars have always caused destruction and violence, but the strategies and methods employed have constantly changed over time. Currently, we live in an era where military strategies are (or at least should be) governed by the rules of international law while the latter is increasingly subject to fragmentation, misinterpretation, selective application and politicisation. At the same time, the means of warfare are rapidly advancing, incorporating new technologies such as digital, space-based and automated AI systems. This has created a complex landscape of various perspectives, capabilities and realities, in which some of our core values, including human rights, environmental protection and the rule of law, have been severely undermined. This presentation aims to provide an overview of this intricate reality by taking the example of the automated AI weapons that are being reportedly used in Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, shedding light on the main legal and practical challenges surrounding the devastating and lethal use of these emerging technologies in military contexts.
The Lure of War
“War can never break free from the magical spectacle because its very purpose is to produce that spectacle”, wrote Paul Virilio in 1986 in his book War and Cinema: The Logistics of Perception, in which he explores the interdependence of warfare and image making technologies. Today, the spectacle of war expands across the web, penetrating the most intimate aspects of our lives and positioning us as its active users and participants.
Violent images proliferate, yet, their power to bring justice—or to halt violence—seems to wane. We might be tempted to say that they no longer work. But what if they started working differently?
Focusing on Russians’ online recruitment campaigns in Ukraine and Europe, this lecture illustrates how advertising strategies are employed in war operations, turning conflict into a marketable solution for perceived customers’ “pains”. Meanwhile, images of violence are repurposed from testimonies of crimes to weaponized engagement hooks.
Ask Me for Those Unborn Promises That May Seem Unlikely to Happen in the Natural
Generative AI-powered media create speculative visuals that, while not based on factual events, remain plausible, constructing realities that have yet to unfold. Situated within the domain of possibility rather than empirical certainty, these visuals introduce a new form of synthetic realism. By reshaping both past and present through their world-building potential, these seemingly innocuous images—detached from tangible references, historical ties, lineage, or context—wield a quiet yet profound violence against history and factuality.
The lecture performance explores this emerging mode of the image’s existence, spanning from overt destruction to subtle, almost imperceptible impact, and traces how it gives rise to novel expressions of violence. Focusing on their deployment in the ongoing war on Palestine, it reveals how speculative gen AI visuals extend violence into the not-yet-realized, challenging a traditional understanding of fact and evidence.
The event has been funded with the support from the European Commission through the Creative Europe Program.
