{"id":367,"date":"2022-01-14T11:04:53","date_gmt":"2021-11-27T11:34:34","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/the-future-at-the-end-of-the-line-the-nostalgia-of-syberia-and-the-last-express-2\/"},"modified":"2022-01-25T08:16:21","modified_gmt":"2022-01-25T08:16:21","slug":"meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/","title":{"rendered":"Meteors and Meat Machines"},"content":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":375,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[3],"tags":[47],"class_list":["post-367","post","type-post","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-nostalgia","tag-india-lewis"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v18.0 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/wordpress\/plugins\/seo\/ -->\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Meteors and Meat Machines - Kajet presents: The Future of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Kajet presents: The Future of\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-11-27T11:34:34+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2022-01-25T08:16:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3.png\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1042\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"760\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/png\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"kd_Admin\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/\",\"name\":\"Kajet presents: The Future of\",\"description\":\"The Future Of ... Nostalgia\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":\"required name=search_term_string\"}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#primaryimage\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3.png\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3.png\",\"width\":1042,\"height\":760},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#webpage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/\",\"name\":\"Meteors and Meat Machines - Kajet presents: The Future of\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#primaryimage\"},\"datePublished\":\"2021-11-27T11:34:34+00:00\",\"dateModified\":\"2022-01-25T08:16:21+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/#\/schema\/person\/040fabf36b0b26484bb81f2ebc28dc9c\"},\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"Meteors and Meat Machines\"}]}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"Meteors and Meat Machines - Kajet presents: The Future of","og_url":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/","og_site_name":"Kajet presents: The Future of","article_published_time":"2021-11-27T11:34:34+00:00","article_modified_time":"2022-01-25T08:16:21+00:00","og_image":[{"width":1042,"height":760,"url":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3.png","type":"image\/png"}],"twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"kd_Admin"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/#website","url":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/","name":"Kajet presents: The Future of","description":"The Future Of ... Nostalgia","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":"required name=search_term_string"}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"ImageObject","@id":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#primaryimage","inLanguage":"en-US","url":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3.png","contentUrl":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3.png","width":1042,"height":760},{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#webpage","url":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/","name":"Meteors and Meat Machines - Kajet presents: The Future of","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#primaryimage"},"datePublished":"2021-11-27T11:34:34+00:00","dateModified":"2022-01-25T08:16:21+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/#\/schema\/person\/040fabf36b0b26484bb81f2ebc28dc9c"},"breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/"]}]},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/nostalgia\/meteors-and-meat-machines-india-lewis\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"Meteors and Meat Machines"}]}]}},"grid":"{\r\n  \"colCount\": 12,\r\n  \"colGutter\": 1,\r\n  \"rowGutters\": [\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    5,\r\n    10\r\n  ],\r\n  \"frameMargin\": 0,\r\n  \"topFrameMargin\": 0,\r\n  \"bottomFrameMargin\": 0,\r\n  \"rowAttrs\": [\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {\r\n      \"bgcolor\": \"#ffffff\"\r\n    },\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {},\r\n    {}\r\n  ],\r\n  \"bgColor\": null,\r\n  \"cont\": [\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3.png\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 0,\r\n      \"col\": 0,\r\n      \"colspan\": 12,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 0,\r\n      \"relid\": 393,\r\n      \"attid\": 375,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3.png\",\r\n        \"_1024\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3-1024x747.png\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3-768x560.png\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3-512x373.png\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_3-265x193.png\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 1042,\r\n      \"h\": 760,\r\n      \"ar\": 0.7293666026871402,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<h1 class=\\\"_Headline\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 60px;\\\">Meteors and Meat Machines<span style=\\\"font-size: 48px;\\\">*<\/span><\/span><\/h1><p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">India Lewis<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 1,\r\n      \"col\": 1,\r\n      \"colspan\": 7,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 1,\r\n      \"relid\": 5\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p style=\\\"text-align: right;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400; font-family: Quant-Antiqua_Light;\\\">\u201cThe Palace of Culture: the building is black, velvety from fire, and two snow-white nude statues stand out against this black background.<\/span><\/p><p style=\\\"text-align: right;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-family: Quant-Antiqua_Light;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">There are children wandering about, there are many laughing faces. Many people are half insane.\u201d<sup>1<\/sup> (<\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Vasily Grossman, <i>A Writer at War<\/i>)<\/span><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 2,\r\n      \"col\": 7,\r\n      \"colspan\": 4,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 7,\r\n      \"relid\": 15,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p style=\\\"text-align: left;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Utopias are not all they seem\u2014all too often, the bright faces, wide avenues, and fecund gardens are just there to mask the rotten heart of a flawed society. Dystopias are far more inevitable, threatening each new state as it begins its path towards a brighter, or at least a better future. It is perhaps clich\u00e9d to examine the collapse of the Soviet Union in terms of its status as utopia, or dystopia, but nonetheless, the (failed) search for the perfect world is a theme that recurs in Russian and Eastern European culture. Here, the line between utopia and dystopia is blurred or crossed over and back again, and in a particularly Eastern fascination with the biomorphic or living land, the paradise of the Garden of Eden is rediscovered in new and unsettling ways. These are places that can change those who enter them irrevocably, and, in the case of the brotherhood in Vladimir Sorokin\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Bro, <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">become the platforms from which their <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">utopia<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> (in the form of an ice-meteorite with the power to awaken souls) can be collected and distributed in the world of man. Another meteor seems to have landed and created an uninhabited, but dangerous paradise in Tarkovsky\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Stalker<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">, at the centre of which is a room that can supposedly grant man\u2019s innermost desire. Although there is no meteor at the centre of Svetlana Alexievich\u2019s <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Chernobyl Prayer, <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">the explosion that arguably precipitated the end of the Soviet Union is at the very heart of every testimonial that she records. In the latter\u2019s horror there is no utopia, but nonetheless the idea persists, as both a political and a nostalgic paradise that was shattered and, paradoxically, crystallised at the epicentre of the explosion.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 3,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 8,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 4,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_5.png\",\r\n      \"align\": \"middle\",\r\n      \"row\": 4,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 4,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 1013,\r\n      \"attid\": 376,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_5.png\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_5-768x561.png\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_5-512x374.png\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_5-265x193.png\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 1000,\r\n      \"h\": 730,\r\n      \"ar\": 0.73,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Screenshot from Stalker (1979, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky).<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p style=\\\"text-align: left;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400; font-family: Quant-Antiqua_Light; font-size: 30px;\\\">As the aftershocks at the epicentre of these three works are felt by those in the Zone of the cataclysms, they begin to have spatial and temporal effects. Each plays with the potential for Utopia, but the nature of their corruption disrupts and complicates their future.<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 4,\r\n      \"col\": 8,\r\n      \"colspan\": 3,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 16,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Svetlana Alexievich, born in Ukraine in 1948, and renowned for her innovative way of recording the voices and memories of those involved in the most significant events in the USSR\u2019s history, describes in <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Chernobyl Prayer <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">the management of its fallout. Whilst it is contentious to say that this event marked the beginning of the end for a failing state, Chernobyl was the disaster that revealed the flaws at the heart of the Soviet Union, as well as its desire to manage the catastrophe at the cost of its citizens. <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Chernobyl Prayer <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">is a deeply upsetting text, as the extent to which the tragedy affected people both mentally and physically is revealed in unflinching detail. One of her witnesses denigrates the reaction of the authorities: \u201c[t]he propaganda machine was working, the dream factory, preserving our myths: we can survive anywhere, even in a dead land.\u201d<sup>2<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u00a0The preservation of <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">myths <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">is, perhaps, all the more bitter given the mythical connection of those living in the East to the land that they inhabit, now <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">a dead land<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">. The mythological past of the lands that constituted the Soviet Union is referred to throughout her text, manifesting not only in tales of household gods and forest spirits, but in the nostalgia for a golden past:<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 5,\r\n      \"col\": 1,\r\n      \"colspan\": 8,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 1,\r\n      \"relid\": 17\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/FM-2019-1-3-6-194_Niggl-Radloff-B-Portrait-Villa-Waldberta-ONLINE.jpeg\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 5,\r\n      \"col\": 9,\r\n      \"colspan\": 3,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 0,\r\n      \"relid\": 391,\r\n      \"attid\": 368,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/FM-2019-1-3-6-194_Niggl-Radloff-B-Portrait-Villa-Waldberta-ONLINE.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/FM-2019-1-3-6-194_Niggl-Radloff-B-Portrait-Villa-Waldberta-ONLINE-768x797.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/FM-2019-1-3-6-194_Niggl-Radloff-B-Portrait-Villa-Waldberta-ONLINE-512x532.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/FM-2019-1-3-6-194_Niggl-Radloff-B-Portrait-Villa-Waldberta-ONLINE-265x275.jpeg\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 1024,\r\n      \"h\": 1063,\r\n      \"ar\": 1.0380859375,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Svetlana Alexievich in the Waldberta Villa (1996). Photo by Barbara Niggl Radloff.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">We drank birch drink and maple drink. We steamed runner beans in iron pots in the big oven. Made kissel from the cranberries. [...] But now we\u2019ve got a life where that\u2019s all ruined. We thought it would last and last, things would carry on the way they\u2019d always been. And what was bubbling in the pot would be there forever.<span><sup>3<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 6,\r\n      \"col\": 3,\r\n      \"colspan\": 6,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 3,\r\n      \"relid\": 18\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\">* This text was originally published in Kajet Journal, issue 02, On Utopias, available here.<br \/>1 Vasily Grossman &amp; Antony Beevor, <em>A Writer at War: Vasily Grossman with the Red Army 1941-1945<\/em>, L. Vinogradova (trans.) (London: Pimlico, 2006).<span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"><br \/><\/span>2 Svetlana Alexievich, <em>Chernobyl<\/em> <em>Prayer<\/em>. A. Gunin &amp; A. Tait (trans.) (London: Penguin, 2016), 200.<span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"><br \/>3 Svetlana Alexievich, <em>Chernobyl Prayer<\/em>, 63.<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 7,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 8,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 6,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/804-03494304-1-25-20-010512.jpg\",\r\n      \"align\": \"middle\",\r\n      \"row\": 8,\r\n      \"col\": 1,\r\n      \"colspan\": 5,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 1,\r\n      \"relid\": 1795,\r\n      \"attid\": 381,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/804-03494304-1-25-20-010512.jpg\",\r\n        \"_1920\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/804-03494304-1-25-20-010512-1920x1315.jpg\",\r\n        \"_1280\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/804-03494304-1-25-20-010512-1280x877.jpg\",\r\n        \"_1024\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/804-03494304-1-25-20-010512-1024x701.jpg\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/804-03494304-1-25-20-010512-768x526.jpg\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/804-03494304-1-25-20-010512-512x351.jpg\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/804-03494304-1-25-20-010512-265x181.jpg\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 2126,\r\n      \"h\": 1456,\r\n      \"ar\": 0.6848541862652869,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Military and traffic police in a car on the territory polluted after the accident at the Chernobyl nuclear power plant. V. I. Lenin (1986).\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Power-unit-\u2116-4-of-the-Chernobyl-NPP-named-after-V.-I.-Lenin.-1986.-Photo-by-V.-Repik..jpg\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 8,\r\n      \"col\": 7,\r\n      \"colspan\": 4,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 1,\r\n      \"relid\": 622,\r\n      \"attid\": 377,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Power-unit-\u2116-4-of-the-Chernobyl-NPP-named-after-V.-I.-Lenin.-1986.-Photo-by-V.-Repik..jpg\",\r\n        \"_1280\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Power-unit-\u2116-4-of-the-Chernobyl-NPP-named-after-V.-I.-Lenin.-1986.-Photo-by-V.-Repik.-1280x1846.jpg\",\r\n        \"_1024\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Power-unit-\u2116-4-of-the-Chernobyl-NPP-named-after-V.-I.-Lenin.-1986.-Photo-by-V.-Repik.-1024x1477.jpg\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Power-unit-\u2116-4-of-the-Chernobyl-NPP-named-after-V.-I.-Lenin.-1986.-Photo-by-V.-Repik.-768x1108.jpg\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Power-unit-\u2116-4-of-the-Chernobyl-NPP-named-after-V.-I.-Lenin.-1986.-Photo-by-V.-Repik.-512x738.jpg\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Power-unit-\u2116-4-of-the-Chernobyl-NPP-named-after-V.-I.-Lenin.-1986.-Photo-by-V.-Repik.-265x382.jpg\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 1474,\r\n      \"h\": 2126,\r\n      \"ar\": 1.4423337856173677,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Power unit \u2116 4 of the Chernobyl NPP named after V. I. Lenin. 1986. Photo by V. Repik.<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">There is a timelessness in these accounts, the idea that the land is eternal and would be there forever. This is most poignant in recollections of the homesteads\u2019 perfection that surrounded Chernobyl, which in some cases were left intact, but in others, were figuratively and actually buried, as one worker recollects\u2014\u201cwe buried earth in the earth. Along with the beetles, spiders and maggots, that whole separate nation.\u201d<sup>4<\/sup> This idea of separate worlds contained within the whole is central to how the residents remember their past. The houses, villages, woods, and fields that they left behind have become not only a paradisiacal garden of Eden, from which they were expelled by a superior force once their knowledge became too much for them, they also constituted something outside themselves with which they identified utterly. Now, that this has been taken away from them by a terrifying, invisible force, it is as if the residents who tell their stories have also been removed from their previous identities, and reformed in a new, inexplicable world. Their utopia will always be past, and can never be remade after the explosion at the heart of these testimonies and of this text.<\/span><\/p><p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">This similar kind of nostalgia is present in Tarkovsky\u2019s <i>Stalker<\/i>, in its opening, when the Writer (who is to journey into the Zone) is seeking to seduce a beautiful young woman with his wit and eschatological musings.<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 9,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 8,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 7,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-9.png\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 10,\r\n      \"col\": 1,\r\n      \"colspan\": 4,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 1,\r\n      \"relid\": 2474,\r\n      \"attid\": 372,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-9.png\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-9-768x561.png\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-9-512x374.png\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-9-265x193.png\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 833,\r\n      \"h\": 608,\r\n      \"ar\": 0.7298919567827131,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Screenshot from Stalker (1979, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky).<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400; font-family: SuisseIntl-Book; font-size: 24px;\\\">My dear, our world is hopelessly boring. Therefore there can be no telepathy, or apparitions, or flying saucers, nothing like that. The world is ruled by cast-iron laws, and it is insufferably boring [\u2026] to live in the Middle Ages was interesting. Every home had its house-spirit, and every church its God.<sup>5<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 10,\r\n      \"col\": 5,\r\n      \"colspan\": 4,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 0,\r\n      \"relid\": 19,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\">4 <span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Svetlana Alexievich, <em>Chernobyl Prayer<\/em>, 104.<br \/>5 Quote from Stalker (1979, dir. <span>Andrei Tarkovsky), <\/span>by Pisatel (played by Anatoliy Solonitsyn).\u00a0<br \/><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 11,\r\n      \"col\": 7,\r\n      \"colspan\": 3,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 7,\r\n      \"relid\": 9\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-8.png\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 12,\r\n      \"col\": 0,\r\n      \"colspan\": 12,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 0,\r\n      \"relid\": 2023,\r\n      \"attid\": 371,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-8.png\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-8-768x561.png\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-8-512x374.png\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ATLAS-OF-PLACES-ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER-IMG-8-265x193.png\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 833,\r\n      \"h\": 608,\r\n      \"ar\": 0.7298919567827131,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"right\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Screenshot from Stalker (1979, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky).<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Vladimir_sorokin_20060313.jpeg\",\r\n      \"align\": \"middle\",\r\n      \"row\": 13,\r\n      \"col\": 0,\r\n      \"colspan\": 2,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 0,\r\n      \"relid\": 392,\r\n      \"attid\": 379,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Vladimir_sorokin_20060313.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Vladimir_sorokin_20060313-265x265.jpeg\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 512,\r\n      \"h\": 512,\r\n      \"ar\": 1,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Vladimir Sorokin at Lit.Cologne, a literature festival in Cologne (2006).<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">There is the same idealisation of the past here as there is in <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Chernobyl Prayer, <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">but this perhaps misguided recollection is of something that the Writer has not himself experienced. There is no mythical and beautiful forest in the industrial land that we see outside the<\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> Zone <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">of <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Stalker<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">. The Writer cannot identify with these people of the Middle Ages, and indeed his grandiose assertion acts solely as a tool for him to flirt with his companion. But, similarly to Alexievich\u2019s witnesses, he creates a sense that there is something beyond his control that has caused there to \u201cbe no telepathy, or apparitions, or flying saucers, nothing like that,\u201d at least, not anymore. Unlike the event that was Chernobyl, however, the epicentre of the film and of the Zone of S<\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">talker<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> is generative, and offers new possibility. Instead of being a negative force, the epicentre here is a positive one. This is problematised by the nature of the possibilities on offer, but nonetheless, the Zone still has the potential to be seen as a utopia at this point, another<\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> other<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> that the characters can invest themselves in and thereby access a possibly better world. The fecundity of the Zone is reinforced by the switch from black and white to colour as the Stalker, Writer, and Professor enter the Zone in one long tracking shot. The uncertainty of what they will find is similar loaded with potential\u2014it could be, the Professor says, \u201cnothing or anything. A message to mankind, as one of my colleagues says, or a gift.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Vladimir Sorokin\u2019s narrator, Snegirev (later, Bro), sees only potential in the future of his utopia. It is foreshadowed at his birth, 30<\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">th<\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> June 1908, when \u201cmy mother joked: <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">The sky lit up in your honour.<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u201d<sup>6<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u00a0This is the moment that a meteorite falls to earth, a meteorite whose ice can unlock \u201cthe <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">huge and intimate<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u201d (an example of the almost bathetic, propaganda-satire italicisation that peppers the book). Again, he is relying on an<\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> other<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> to unlock something within him, but this is far more complex. He comes from a world that is as idealised as that of the prelapsarian Chernobyl: \u201cthe warm, abundant nature of Ukraine rocked me like a cradle [...] I grew up healthy and happy in this human hive.\u201d<sup>7<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> It is only when his family moves to Russia, encounters the Revolution, and is almost wiped out as a result, that this glorious world is lost\u2014\u201cgradually, my childhood paradise began to show cracks. Russian life seeped in through them.\u201d<sup>8<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> These cracks are wrenched opened in the explosion that kills his father, brother, and uncle\u2014\u201cit was as though it cut me off from my past. And along with my past\u2014any love for it.\u201d<sup>9<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u00a0This explosion deadens him, and allows him to separate himself from the world both temporally and spatially, as he imagines himself suspended, \u201cI simply <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">hung <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">amid the planets and stars.\u201d<sup>10<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u00a0He is free in a way that Chernobyl\u2019s victims and, arguably, Stalker\u2019s characters cannot be. Their explosions only heighten their connection to the past. One of <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Stalker<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u2019s most poignant moments, for example, is when the Professor calls his former co-worker, and is told that he is dirt. His past is dredged up at the very moment that he approaches the epicentre of the film, and of the Zone.<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 13,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 8,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 0,\r\n      \"relid\": 10,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\">6 Vladimir <span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Sorokin, <em>I<\/em><\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">ce Trilogy<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">,<\/span> <span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">J. Gambrell (trans.) (New York: New York Review of Books, 2011), 4.<\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"><br \/>7 Sorokin, <em>I<\/em><i>ce Trilogy<\/i>, 6-7.<\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"><br \/>8 Sorokin, <em>I<\/em><i>ce Trilogy<\/i>, 9.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 14,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 4,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 11\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">9 Sorokin, <em>I<\/em><i>ce Trilogy<\/i>, 30.<br \/><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">10 Sorokin, <em>I<\/em><i>ce Trilogy<\/i>, 46.<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 14,\r\n      \"col\": 6,\r\n      \"colspan\": 4,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 0,\r\n      \"relid\": 12\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Me\u0301te\u0301orite_de_Phnom_Penh_MHNT.MIN_.2011.0.1.jpg\",\r\n      \"align\": \"middle\",\r\n      \"row\": 15,\r\n      \"col\": 1,\r\n      \"colspan\": 10,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 1,\r\n      \"relid\": 557,\r\n      \"attid\": 380,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Me\u0301te\u0301orite_de_Phnom_Penh_MHNT.MIN_.2011.0.1.jpg\",\r\n        \"_1280\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Me\u0301te\u0301orite_de_Phnom_Penh_MHNT.MIN_.2011.0.1-1280x723.jpg\",\r\n        \"_1024\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Me\u0301te\u0301orite_de_Phnom_Penh_MHNT.MIN_.2011.0.1-1024x578.jpg\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Me\u0301te\u0301orite_de_Phnom_Penh_MHNT.MIN_.2011.0.1-768x434.jpg\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Me\u0301te\u0301orite_de_Phnom_Penh_MHNT.MIN_.2011.0.1-512x289.jpg\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Me\u0301te\u0301orite_de_Phnom_Penh_MHNT.MIN_.2011.0.1-265x150.jpg\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 1422,\r\n      \"h\": 803,\r\n      \"ar\": 0.5646976090014064,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Pnompehn meteorite, Chondrite L6. Fell in 1868, into 3 pieces. Two views of the same specimen.<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">The landscape around the meteorite in <em>Bro<\/em>, which is shown in great (though terrible) beauty in <em>Stalker<\/em> and <em>Chernobyl Prayer<\/em>, is given a similar reverence by Snegirev\u2014\u201cthe incomparable Siberian landscape [...] stretched in boundless breadth, overgrown with pine and larch.\u201d<sup>11<\/sup> The surroundings to the blast zone are dead, swamp, a primordial ooze encased in an alien landscape of burnt or felled trees. The Ice is all that Snegirev is truly interested in, and all of the descriptions or depictions of nature and the past that hold so much lyrical and mythological significance in <em>Stalker<\/em> and <em>Chernobyl Prayer<\/em>, are given lip service here (even the truly mystical tales told by the local Evenki are mere foreshadowings)\u2014we, as the reader, know that the meteorite is the sole aim and desire of Snegirev. The rest is scene-setting. He longs, however subconsciously or unconsciously, to awaken his soul, using the other, and he is not able to do that until he touches the Ice. At that moment, everything \u201chad all hardened under glass forever. It all became the past. And detached itself from me.\u201d<sup>12<\/sup> He is thereby emancipated in a way that none of the witnesses in <em>Chernobyl Prayer<\/em> or the adventurers in <em>Stalker<\/em> can be. <\/span><\/p><p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">After the fall, all of the inhabitants of these three works are forced into reconceptualising their futures. This process, however, is complicated by the nature of the explosions at the heart of these works. An interesting unitary factor is that all of these cataclysms take place exactly 20 years before the present of the work. In all of them, there is change, but this can only take place through the medium of the explosion or the event itself. <\/span><\/p><p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"><em>Chernobyl Prayer<\/em> is infected by the memory of the event, which seems more ineradicable because of its untraceability:<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 16,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 8,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 156,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400; font-family: SuisseIntl-Book; font-size: 24px;\\\">Radiation is invisible, with no smell or sound. It is incorporeal [...] Now we could be killed by cut grass, a caught fish or game bird. By an apple. The world around us, once pliant and friendly, now instilled fear [...] A world strange yet familiar. <sup>13<\/sup><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 17,\r\n      \"col\": 3,\r\n      \"colspan\": 6,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 3,\r\n      \"relid\": 20,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\">11 Sorokin, <em>Ice Trilogy<\/em>, 47.<span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"><br \/>12 Sorokin, <em>Ice Trilogy<\/em>, 62.<br \/>13 Alexievich, <em>Chernobyl Prayer<\/em>, 28.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 18,\r\n      \"col\": 6,\r\n      \"colspan\": 2,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 6,\r\n      \"relid\": 13\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ChernobylFilesSpotlightBanner-1024x910-1.jpeg\",\r\n      \"align\": \"middle\",\r\n      \"row\": 19,\r\n      \"col\": 1,\r\n      \"colspan\": 10,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 1,\r\n      \"relid\": 558,\r\n      \"attid\": 382,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ChernobylFilesSpotlightBanner-1024x910-1.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ChernobylFilesSpotlightBanner-1024x910-1-768x683.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ChernobylFilesSpotlightBanner-1024x910-1-512x455.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ChernobylFilesSpotlightBanner-1024x910-1-265x235.jpeg\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 1024,\r\n      \"h\": 910,\r\n      \"ar\": 0.888671875,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">The Chernobyl Files.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">This is a trace that can never, physically, be removed entirely. It is perhaps trite here to highlight the apple, and link it to the Garden of Eden, but, nonetheless, there is a strong sense in which Chernobyl, once the symbol of a bold Soviet future, has turned into a repository for bitter memory. Towards the end of the text there is a <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Monologue on sacrificial victims and priests<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">:<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 20,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 8,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 164,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">People go there as if to a graveyard. A post-technological world. Time has gone backwards. What is buried there is not only their home but a whole epoch. An epoch of faith. In science! In an ideal of social justice! [...] When the empire disintegrated, we were on our own. I hesitate to say it, but\u2026 we love Chernobyl. We have come to love it. It is the meaning of our lives, which we have found again, the meaning of our suffering. Like the war. The world heard about us Belarusians after Chernobyl. It was our introduction to Europe. We are simultaneously its sacrificial victims and its priests. drank birch drink and maple drink. We steamed runner beans in iron pots in the big oven.<span><sup>14<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"middle\",\r\n      \"row\": 21,\r\n      \"col\": 3,\r\n      \"colspan\": 6,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 3,\r\n      \"relid\": 21,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">14 Alexievich, <i>Chernobyl Prayer<\/i>, 28-9.<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 22,\r\n      \"col\": 6,\r\n      \"colspan\": 5,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 6,\r\n      \"relid\": 166\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">The past is the means by which the victim\u2019s future is defined, but also the hindrance to actually moving into this future, as \u201ctime has gone backwards,\u201d and at the moment of the explosion, time\u2019s progression halted. \u201cThe world heard about us Belarusians after Chernobyl,\u201d and as they seemed to come into existence at this point, so it will always define that nation for a portion of the world (however unjustly). Radiation\u2019s incorporeality ensures its lasting infection, and crystallises \u201cthe meaning of our suffering.\u201d That \u201cwe are simultaneously its sacrificial victims and its priests\u201d is only enabled by having these words immortalised as testimony. The world still carries on, however, \u201cyou can resettle people, but not the elk and the boars. And the water takes no notice of boundaries, it flows where it will, over the ground, under the ground.\u201d<sup>15<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> In a sense, the natural world lives on beyond the disaster allowed a temporal future that may be polluted but carries on somewhat regardless. The flora and fauna of the Garden of Eden have outlived the Fall, but its people seem trapped in the singularity of the explosion.<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">There is a similar feeling of the world outside carrying on regardless in <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Stalker. <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">The characters that we meet in a black and white bar at the beginning of the film are returned to that same bar at the conclusion of it. The Stalker himself bemoans this indifference \u201cno-one needs that room. All my efforts are in vain.\u201d The Writer and the Professor undergo trials and change within the Zone, but we are not shown their reaction to it in the quotidian world. The Professor reveals that his colleagues and he had come to the conclusion that the Zone should remain, beyond its barbed wire fence, and even he cannot do what he set out to do, and destroy it, in an echo of his failure to do so many years previously. There is a reverence, here, too, as in <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Chernobyl Prayer; <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">the theme of belief recurs again and again, as the Professor says:<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 23,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 8,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 23\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">This place will never bring happiness to anyone [...] Though, I\u2019m not sure anymore. We came to the conclusion then that we shouldn\u2019t destroy the Zone after all. Even if it\u2019s some miracle, it\u2019s part of nature, and therefore, a hope in a sense.<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 24,\r\n      \"col\": 3,\r\n      \"colspan\": 6,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 3,\r\n      \"relid\": 24,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">15 Alexievich, <i>Chernobyl Prayer<\/i>, 59.<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 25,\r\n      \"col\": 6,\r\n      \"colspan\": 2,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 6,\r\n      \"relid\": 25\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_1.png\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 26,\r\n      \"col\": 1,\r\n      \"colspan\": 10,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 1,\r\n      \"relid\": 785,\r\n      \"attid\": 373,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_1.png\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_1-768x561.png\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_1-512x374.png\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/ANDREI-TARKOVSKY-STALKER_1-265x193.png\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 833,\r\n      \"h\": 608,\r\n      \"ar\": 0.7298919567827131,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Screenshot from Stalker (1979, dir. Andrei Tarkovsky).<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">This swampy, misty otherworld is an antidote to an industrial world \u201cruled by cast-iron laws,\u201d which is \u201cinsufferably boring.\u201d There is no actual god in the church of the<\/span> <span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Zone\u2019s<\/span> <span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">room, but there is the possibility of glimpsing something hidden within the hearts of everyone who enters into it. That the Stalker, Writer, and Professor never enter it keeps the mystery intact, its presence both an intimation of the otherworldly and the basest human desires. It can be argued that the Zone and the industrial outer world that surrounds it, with pylons, puddles, and electricity stations, cannot be more separate. There seems to be only one way in, and a transport that appears to be making the journey, loaded with pylon parts, sees its technology shattered by stray bullets. The first things encountered in the Zone are ruined tanks and cars, taken out of context and broken down by the hyper-nature of the Zone. By these signs, the two worlds would seem in opposition, isolated from one another both temporally and spatially. However, there is a sense in which the Zone is bleeding into the everyday world. Colour seeps into the final scenes, as we see Stalker and his family walk across the screen with a backdrop of cooling towers, and the camera focuses on his daughter, Monkey, who is a mutant, \u201c<\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">a victim of the Zone,<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> as they call it.\u201d In the last scene, again in colour, we see her use telekinesis to move glasses along a table towards us. Pollen blows in, and the plants of the Zone, almost entirely absent in the quotidian world, seem to be starting to encroach. Stalker himself can never escape, and, as his wife says directly to camera \u201cyou\u2019ve probably already noticed that he\u2019s not of this world.\u201d<\/span><\/p><p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">By contrast, in <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">Bro, <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">the explosion is controlled, free of the past when moving into its future. This is due, in part, to the nature of the event. The meteorite is generative, in a sense, as it allows the infection to spread and grow as it does so. There is some overspill into nature, but it merely reinforces the natural. Snegirev feels it along with his companions as he approaches the site\u2014\u201can eternal cold was exuded by the stony, mossy earth, and it seeped through our clothes.\u201d<sup>16<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> But this could equally be the chill of the permafrost; as readers, we are only alert to it given Snegirev\u2019s connection to ice. This sense of containment is present in the moment of Bro\u2019s awakening, as he likens it to childhood, a palm \u201cin which you lie as though in a shell.\u201d<sup>17<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u00a0He has been rebirthed, and his past life has been shed. He is repulsed by nature as he sees bears ripping apart an elk, and henceforth he and all of his converts survive on fruit and berries. They become no longer part of the human world, of <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">MEAT MACHINES<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">.<sup>18<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> They are able to do so because each of them is hit by ice from the same meteorite, and this can only activate them if their hearts are attuned to the ice, if they are one of the 23,000 Heavenly brother and sisterhood. Their isolation is clear in their communication, which takes place in spatial and temporal disjoint. When Bro awakens Fer, they stand \u201cstock-still, frozen in time, joining our hearts like a bridge joins two shores,\u201d<sup>19<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u00a0and when they talk \u201ctime stopped. We <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">disappeared <\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">in this conversation. And hung in space, forgetting who and where we were.\u201d<sup>20<\/sup><\/span><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">\u00a0The past is denied in this <\/span><i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">forgetting<\/span><\/i><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">, their previous selves lost as they become discrete islands, only connected to those whose hearts also beat in time with the Ice. Fer recalls her childhood, stepping off a cliff onto the ice of a river:<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 27,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 7,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 26,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">The frozen Angara was flowing backward into a completely different country, and this country was enormous and all white.<span><sup>21<\/sup><\/span><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"middle\",\r\n      \"row\": 28,\r\n      \"col\": 3,\r\n      \"colspan\": 6,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 3,\r\n      \"relid\": 27,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">16 Sorokin, <em>Ice Trilogy<\/em>, 52.<br \/>17 Sorokin, <em>Ice Trilogy<\/em>, 60.<br \/>18 Sorokin, <em>Ice Trilogy<\/em>, 178.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 29,\r\n      \"col\": 3,\r\n      \"colspan\": 2,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 3,\r\n      \"relid\": 28\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">19 Sorokin, <em>Ice Trilogy<\/em>, 84.<br \/>20 Sorokin, <em>Ice Trilogy<\/em>, 85.<br \/>21\u00a0Sorokin, <em>Ice Trilogy<\/em>, 90.<br \/><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 29,\r\n      \"col\": 8,\r\n      \"colspan\": 2,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 3,\r\n      \"relid\": 29\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"img\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Fedor_Vasilev_-_The_Thaw.jpeg\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 30,\r\n      \"col\": 0,\r\n      \"colspan\": 12,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 0,\r\n      \"relid\": 1126,\r\n      \"attid\": 383,\r\n      \"sizes\": {\r\n        \"full\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Fedor_Vasilev_-_The_Thaw.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_1024\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Fedor_Vasilev_-_The_Thaw-1024x508.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_768\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Fedor_Vasilev_-_The_Thaw-768x381.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_512\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Fedor_Vasilev_-_The_Thaw-512x254.jpeg\",\r\n        \"_265\": \"\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/Fedor_Vasilev_-_The_Thaw-265x132.jpeg\"\r\n      },\r\n      \"w\": 1134,\r\n      \"h\": 563,\r\n      \"ar\": 0.4964726631393298,\r\n      \"alt\": \"\",\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\",\r\n      \"caption\": \"<p style=\\\"line-height: 0.6;\\\"><span style=\\\"font-size: 12px;\\\">Fyodor Vasilyev, The Thaw (1871), oil on canvas, Tretyakov Gallery. Courtesy of Wikimedia Commons.<\/span><\/p>\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">The almost negatory Ice envelopes them and constitutes them, and henceforth humans are reduced to machines, Russia renamed the Country of Ice, and Germany the Country of Order. They fear death, but will be united in themselves. And when the 23,000 are united they will pronounce the 23 words \u201cwith their hearts. And the Light would begin to shine. And the Earth would disappear. And Time would stop. And Eternity would arrive.\u201d<sup>22<\/sup><\/span><\/p><p><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\"> Through Stalker, Chernobyl Prayer, and Bro we see the fallout from three past explosions, which, although seem to profoundly affect their victims or witnesses, alter them in very different ways. Stalker\u2019s Zone seems discrete, separate, but is in actuality bleeding into the world outside, blurring the boundary between the two places. A child of the Zone has been birthed into the outside world, and her power can act upon it. Chernobyl Prayer\u2019s speakers are unable to prevent the rampant pollution of the outside world by their own Zone. The moment of the explosion is the moment at which their time seemed to stand still, the event by which their future will be defined. However, hope rests in the natural world, as the sole positive speaker says \u201cthere\u2019s total freedom here. I\u2019d say it\u2019s heaven.\u201d<sup>23<\/sup> The human utopia may have been destroyed, but the natural world lives on regardless. The utopia of Bro, unlike either of these two pieces, seems to be given nascent possibility at the moment of the explosion. It is self-contained, and generative, able to pass between beings, and so grow in strength. It becomes a space within their mythology, a possible future world. As each of these explosions continue to affect their surroundings and their witnesses, we see both the negation and the possibility of a future utopia. But these utopias are complicated, affected by what came before. None can truly separate themselves from the outside world, and so they each pass on their experience to others, affecting them in their turn.<\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 31,\r\n      \"col\": 2,\r\n      \"colspan\": 7,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 2,\r\n      \"relid\": 30,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_Source\\\"><span style=\\\"font-weight: 400;\\\">22 Sorokin, <em>Ice Trilogy<\/em>, 223.<br \/>23 Alexievich, <em>Chernobyl Prayer<\/em>, 73.<br \/><br \/><\/span><\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 32,\r\n      \"col\": 8,\r\n      \"colspan\": 2,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 8,\r\n      \"relid\": 31\r\n    },\r\n    {\r\n      \"type\": \"text\",\r\n      \"cont\": \"<p class=\\\"_DefaultQ\\\">A graduate of Cambridge University and the Courtauld Insitute, <strong>India Lewis<\/strong> manages a gallery in Mayfair. She is a writer for The Year\u2019s Work in Critical and Cultural Theory, with a focus on Surrealism, and Russian Avant-Garde Art.<\/p>\",\r\n      \"align\": \"top\",\r\n      \"row\": 33,\r\n      \"col\": 4,\r\n      \"colspan\": 4,\r\n      \"offsetx\": 0,\r\n      \"offsety\": 0,\r\n      \"spaceabove\": 0,\r\n      \"spacebelow\": 0,\r\n      \"yvel\": 1,\r\n      \"push\": 4,\r\n      \"relid\": 14,\r\n      \"frameOverflow\": \"\"\r\n    }\r\n  ]\r\n}","phonegrid":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=367"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/367\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/375"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=367"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=367"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/kajetjournal.com\/thefutureof\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=367"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}