Mask of Tyranny is a video work that explores the uneasy coexistence of beauty and ideological violence. Inspired by Slavoj Žižek’s concept of the “hidden reverse,” the piece overlays vintage newsreel footage of Nazi aggression with stylized black and white images drawn from Untitled Series 1—a photographic study in which the human form is rendered in the likeness of classical sculpture.
This juxtaposition—idealized bodies set against the machinery of authoritarian spectacle—functions as a critical meditation on how aesthetics can obscure or even amplify structures of power. The work probes the seductive veneer of political imagery, where grace and terror operate in parallel, and where visual pleasure can serve as a mask for domination.
The piece is accompanied by a haunting original soundtrack composed entirely from classical music samples and a looped drum segment lifted from Leni Riefenstahl’s Triumph des Willens. Rather than functioning as a collage, the audio forms a cohesive and intentional musical composition that deepens the tension between form and content—beauty and brutality.
Though the finished video was lost to a hard drive failure shortly after completion, the full soundtrack and all visual source material still exist. A faithful reconstruction remains possible.
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