“The Empathic Trail” project, 2021  

The project consists of a story about an alternative/future humanity and supporting artworks.

“In 2036, an explosion occurred, which, instead of destroying all living creatures, transformed them: people acquired the ability, which was later called the “Empathic Trail” — a person can leave a mark of her\his\their emotional state or a ball of thoughts on any object or plant, on the ground. Another person or animal can read it with the help of touch and willpower. That is, this is possible only with desire/consent. In this case, as a person gets closer to the mark, they will sense its energy and type, and can decide whether they want to interact with it. 

People leave marks using special glands in their palms.

 The ability is activated when a person is truly overwhelmed by a certain feeling, when he\she\they is very happy, experiences catharsis or insight, or grief, is on the verge of a breakdown, is in danger, has a strong desire to share something with others, etc. It would seem that this power will allow people to be fully involved in the process of empathy and save themselves from fragmentation and alienation. 

But as in other cases in our history, there were people who used the power of the empathic trail for evil. And they began to create “scarecrows” — such a marks that let the most terrible and traumatic physical and mental feelings get in a mind of a person, leading to seizures, breakdowns, mental disorders, post-traumatic syndrome and sometimes death. Often, so-called trigger-terrorists hunt for empathic traces that appear at the scenes of murders and other terrible crimes, sometimes buying them from victims of various types of violence or seriously ill people in order to disguise them as other types of marks and place them in plants/buildings/things. Such marks are usually disguised as something pleasant and interesting so that the person does not feel threatened. 

Some animals and plants become a kind of hybrids or chimeras after contact with an empathic trace — they can learn to emit special signals that an other creature can read.”