‘Polish Blue Hour’ in the Compilation Videos of Artist ‘Virtual Perception’

by Isabelle Holloway 

“In my restless dreams, I see that town. Silent Hill.”  

Such are the opening lines of ‘Mary’s Letter’ in Silent Hill 2, a horror game whose dark, foggy, and abandoned atmosphere echoes a feeling of virtual strangeness.  

Poland embodies this theme of ‘virtual strangeness’: sitting at the crossroads of Western and Eastern Europe as a Central European country, the identity of Poland is wrested in a tug-of-war between the cultural influences and political ambitions of its neighbors. Today, Poland seeks to strengthen its ties with the former Western neighbor, emphasizing Western economic ties and democratic principles. Yet, the bells of its latter Soviet past eerily resound through its contemporary landscape, with elements such as uncannily pixelesque ‘commie blocks’ and rusted Soviet playground sets forming part of the residue.  

Anonymous artist ‘Virtual Perception’ channels this virtual aspect of strangeness in Poland in their compilation videos, which they upload to the social media platforms of TikTok, Youtube, and Instagram. ‘Blue hour’, a dim-light effect produced when the sun is just below the horizon, particularly adds a strangeness to their video scenes. This effect manifests itself both in the liminal atmospheric conditions and in the sentimental commentary coloring in the nocturnal wanderings of Virtual Perception through the ‘Silent Hill’ of Polish suburbia. 

The short-clip compilation productions of Virtual Perception are especially successful, weaving in narrative references to films like Blade Runner 2049 (2017) and games like Cyberpunk 2077, wistful music like ‘snowfall’ by Øneheart and ‘Stan’ by Eminem, and the humanistic backdrop of viewer commentary. These elements of narration, music, and viewer commentary enhance the pathos of the wanderings of Virtual Perception, creating an immersive artistic experience that intimately explores the themes of desolation, closure, and hope. 

(From top to bottom) Virtual Perception, You look lonely, April 24, 2023, [video still], Poland. Virtual Perception, Prisoners., December 21, 2023, [video still], Poland. Virtual Perception, Vanish so completely., April 24, 2023, [video still], Poland. 

The “fire-red, gas-blue, ghost-green signs [shining] smokily through the tranquil rain”, from F. Scott Fitzgerald’s “Babylon Revisited”, brightly contrast with the night sky in the top video. Together with still cars and wet streets, the video conveys a sense of misplaced isolation in an illuminated scene, completed by the background audio “you look lonely, I can fix that”, from Blade Runner 2049 (2017). This audio underscores the desire for recognition and validation during times of private alienation.  

As one courses through a neighborhood of residential blocks, its windows seemingly stain-glassed in their motley of colors, one can meditate upon the background audio: “We are all prisoners of some memory or fear or disappointment”. Viewers can regard the comment section while contemplating the flurries softly falling down the shards of street lamps; such comments include posts such as “how do I get out…”, with a pensive reply of “Somehow”. This interactive nature of viewer commentatorship imbues the middle video with an emotional universality, drawing viewers out of their desolation and prompting them to break free from their past and egos.  

A similar residential scene is showcased in the bottom video, supplemented by an orbit of empty benches and a perspective beneath an overhead power line. The audio background, “I wanted to vanish so completely that even I would not remember me”, introduces an introspective mood alluding to a desire for escape, whether from the confines of oneself or from the emptiness one may feel in a large world.  

(From top to bottom) Virtual Perception, Go live your life., June 21,2023, [video still], Poland. Virtual Perception, She would be lucky to have you., June 10, 2023, [video still], Poland. Virtual Perception, Why?, February 11, 2024, [video still], Poland. 

In the top video, the moon and windows in the blue-bruised sky, in addition to the snow and lamp light blanketing the ground, irradiate the facades of the residential blocks. The panorama of a neighborhood, an occupied place, becomes stung with an audio background that expresses: “Go live your life; live it without me because there is no place for us together”. Such an audio confronts the heartbroken experience of closure while still rolling itself out into reassuringly winding streets silent with snow. 

Bittersweet acceptance gilds the middle video with rose gold, which is overlaid with a voice admitting: “she would be lucky to have you”. Various comments like “what am i doing wrong” and “i am lucky to have her” suffuse the deserted streets of the town with dual perspectives on, and likely experiences with, such an audio statement, inspiring empathy in viewers as they stroll along dimly lit footpaths. 

Rain pours down indifferently upon the bricked buildings and empty lot of the bottom video, a climatic reflection of the audio backdrop “I don’t love you anymore… goodbye” from the film Closer (2004). Doleful comments like “how do you unlove someone” are tempered by humorous ones like a casual “garlic bread”, displaying a spectrum of reactions to closure ranging from deep sorrow to lighthearted diversion, all beside pensive glimpses of telephone poles and graffitied walls. 

(From top to bottom) Virtual Perception, Please… tell me you have hope., July 23, 2023, [video still], Poland. Virtual Perception, Are you okay?, January 7, 2024, [video still], Poland. Virtual Perception, That is why it’s called a present., July 17, 2023, [video still], Poland. 

“Please… tell me you have hope”; such is the statement uttered in the color-drained residential scene of the top video, which only beams with phantasmagorical strings of light and the pale glitter of snowfall. The blocky residential buildings and parked rows of cars establish a strangely artificial, yet peaceful environment. Juxtaposing comments like “hope is dangerous” and “hope is everything” unveil the universal war between one’s inner struggles, experiences, and coming to terms with meaning in the world.  

An illuminated shopping center entrance, shopping center signboard, pedestrian crossing, and gas station allude to common venues of human consumption and activity in today’s day and age. Amid this urbanized setting in the middle video, the simple, open-ended question “Are you okay?” resonates as a lone voice of concern for the viewer in such a nocturnal standstill. 

The slumbering neighborhood of the bottom video takes viewers on a meander past foot-tracked snow paths, trees, and metal playground bars. Each of these elements is transient: foot-tracks melt away, trees sprout new leaves, and metal playground bars chip off their paint. The audio narration “Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, but today is a gift: that is why it is called the present”, voiced over by Master Oogway in Kung Fu Panda (2008), is relevant then, teaching viewers to relinquish what they cannot control and cherish, rather, what is at their hands.  

As social media platforms increasingly emerge as a means to stay connected around the world, they offer accessible opportunities to share and enjoy interactive, multi-sensory artistic experiences. In the compilation videos of Virtual Perception, the shortened wavelengths of blue light drag out into the still, surreal arena of the post-communist, Polish consciousness. Reverberating with subliminal messages about themes like desolation, closure, and hope, the videos join props like drifting freight trains and soft rainfalls to materialize and validate deep emotions in a raw, personal, and serene experience. Set in the strange underworld of night, the videos of Virtual Perception plunge into the depths of the human experience to evoke poignant moments of shared introspection for their viewers. 

Bibliography 

Contributors. 2022. “Mary’s Letter.” Silent Hill Wiki. Fandom, Inc. 2022. https://silenthill.fandom.com/wiki/Mary%27s_Letter. 

Fitzgerald, F. Scott 1896-1940. Babylon Revisited and Other Stories Collier Books, 1987. 

Negelspach, David C., Sevag Kaladchibachi, and Fabian Fernandez. “The Circadian Activity Rhythm Is Reset by Nanowatt Pulses of Ultraviolet Light.” Proceedings: Biological Sciences 285, no. 1884 (2018): 1–7. https://www.jstor.org/stable/26544922. 

“Virtual Perception | Instagram, TikTok.” Linktree. https://linktr.ee/virtualperception.