Daniil Mikhailov
CHRONOSCOPE

The installation centres around a video projection and a kinetic object resembling a praxinoscope, one of the earliest motion picture devices. A person’s photo archive, generated by neural networks and based on recognizable motifs from family photos, is displayed on a rotating cylinder. As the cylinder moves, the images are displaced and fragmented, turning a linear biography into a series of disconnected frames.

This work views memory as something that connects us to the world, rather than as a repository of facts. It explores the subjective experience of going through dementia, something a general audience rarely sees represented, and asks what happens to a person when they lose access to their own past and their consciousness becomes trapped in the present. The video narrative is based on a compilation of real stories of people with dementia and descriptions of clinical symptoms, turning medical diagnoses into felt experiences.

The work draws on scientific theories of dementia and the phenomenon of terminal lucidity: a brief return of mental clarity shortly before death. The project shows how memory falls apart and then temporarily comes together again, continuously altering our perception of ourselves and reality. This serves as a reminder that even when the past is irrevocably lost, every person trapped in a frozen present is still in need of human connection, understanding, and presence.