LIMEN is an artistic research project investigating contemporary frontline dead-zones as rapidly evolving hybrid ecosystems shaped by warfare technologies, signal infrastructures, and non-human actors.
The project takes the Ukrainian frontline kill-zone as its primary research territory and epistemic starting point, understood not only as a military space, but as a complex ecological system where human presence is reduced, and agency increasingly shifts toward technological, biological, and signal-based actors. Through a combination of spatial analysis, signal ecology research, and simulation-based methodologies, LIMEN examines how electromagnetic environments, drone surveillance, electronic warfare, and algorithmic systems co-produce new forms of interaction between living and non-living entities. The research aims to develop a reproducible methodological framework and a limited simulation environment, accompanied by a small tamagotchi-like companion device prototype, functioning as an interface to this evolving system.
Each LIMEN-device connects to a live simulation server that models the evolving signal-based ecology of contemporary kill-zones. Through LIMEN, a participant can introduce a new actor into the system and follow its transformation over time. The device receives updates about the actor’s state and allows small interventions that reflect care, attention, or neglect. It functions as a learning companion that makes abstract research dynamics perceptible and emotionally accessible.
Through workshops, lectures, and public discussions, the project aims to make abstract technological systems understandable and open to critical debate. It contributes to artistic research by proposing new methods to study, visualise, and engage with complex ecological and technological systems.
