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Incognito refers us to the “unknown”. In the face of a pandemic and recurrent coronavirus outbreaks, we lose our coordinate axis, become depersonalized, unknown, perhaps unfamiliar to others and ourselves.

 

Living in several layers of isolation means an unexplored zone that is deeper and wider than a day, week or month of insecurity, anxiety and uncertainty.

 

We lose our most essential sign - the face - literally, covering it for the sake of our own security and the security of others. To a greater or lesser extent, while we no longer can be as we displayed ourselves to us and those around us in the pre-pandemic world, we also lose that face.

 

Philosopher Emmanuel Levinas in his work “Ethics and Infinity” talks about meeting the face and says that since the Other looks at me, I am responsible for him, without even having taken on responsibilities in his regard. E. Levinas points out that responsibility is initially a for the Other; it means that I am responsible for his very responsibility.

 

“I am responsible for a total responsibility, which answers for all the others and for all in the others, even for their responsibility. The I always has one responsibility more than all the others“, E. Levinas.

 

In the current pandemic, everyone has undoubtedly gained at least one responsibility more than everyone else. This is constantly emphasized by media headlines, expert comments, social advertising. However, what does this responsibility mean in a frightened, defaced society, trying to protect itself in extreme ways? What kind of face can oblige us in the present circumstances, or is it generally justified to raise this question?

 

The media project “Incognito” is a search for signs of collapsed identity of a pandemic human and a pandemic society. It is longing for man, humanity. In the dim light, the silhouettes are visible, they contain something natural and unchangeable, resistant, unbreakable.