Foreword

Abstract

Security narratives are relevant to us both in geopolitical contexts and in everyday life, whose events, according to the writer Olga Tokarczuk, are shaped by networks of subjective meanings. These networks form a fabric of ideas, concepts, and stories that may be considered one of the elements—alongside air, earth, fire, and water—that determine our physical existence and shape us as living beings. In the 121st volume of Acta Acad­ emiae Artium Vilnensis, art historians, critics, philosophers, and artists reconsider both the traditional and the emerging boundaries of a world marked by (in)security, as well as historical and contemporary dystopian impasses. Living in the present, we sense that not only the societies of previous centuries but also those of the twenty-first century are experiencing a crisis of imagination, one in which the future no longer appears clear or pre­ dictable. From a geopolitical perspective, for example, the seemingly concrete boundaries of land and air are often unstable. The notion of a state capable of protecting its citizens, together with political maps and territorial borders, can collapse for a variety of reasons. Today, the traditional contours of a secure life are challenged not only by international politics but also by biopolitical realities. New threats compel us to reconsider the perceived boundaries of corporeality, particularly when confronted with human actors or microorganisms that disregard national borders and airspace, as well as with the consequences of demographic crises and migration. Inflammation and contagion can affect not only biological bodies or digital systems but also the Earth itself, which appears to develop its own forms of immune response. Even homes that once seemed comfortable or at least safe may suddenly become unfamiliar and alien spaces.