A Provocative Exploration of Dreams and Surveillance

Sofia Malemina’s video art piece Unknown Diary explores the theme of fantasies and illusions in our digital world. Drawing from Baudrillard’s concept of Simulacra and Simulation, the work explores the blurred line between online and offline, real and imagined, legal and illegal, reflecting on the contraries. The sound composition, filled with whispers, indistinct echoes, and the city noise, sharpens the feeling of unease and unknowingness, reinforced by the complex appearing and disappearing visual layer. The video’s continuous loop symbolises the endless, elusive quality of a dream, where start and finish often appear vague. Malemina, who directs and acts in the project, is looking inward, developing the amusement with oneself. She is examining surveillance through the prism of voyeurism by creating a replication and depicting the duality of this act through the lens of the camera. 

Unknown Diary was featured in the December exhibition Dreamscapes (London, UK, 2023), inviting viewers into the vast terrain of human emotion and imagination. Each artist in this exhibition offers a distinct perspective, allowing us to venture into the endless landscapes of the mind. Dreamscapes celebrates the influential role of dreams in reshaping how we perceive the world around us.

Despite launching her career only four years ago, Sofia Malemina approaches complex, provocative ideas with confidence and depth that many artists often avoid. Her themes and methods push against traditional limits, especially as she grapples with subjects like surveillance and voyeurism, using unconventional approaches—topics confronting the uneasy relationship between privacy and self-awareness in the digital age. Malemina’s work uses these topics to question the authenticity of human experience, intentions and connections in a time when digital and physical realities are deeply intertwined.

This unflinching engagement with unsettling subjects positions Unknown Diary as more than an observation. It becomes a commentary on the fragmented self in a world where technology increasingly shapes identity. By pushing these frames forward, Malemina invites viewers to confront unconscious, uncomfortable truths about how our inner and outer worlds are curated, edited, observed, and redefined in today’s hyper-connected society. This bold thematic ambition reveals her willingness to dissect and reinterpret contemporary experience, marking her as a vital voice with a unique perspective within modern video art.