Russia-Ukraine War Escalates to Full-Scale Conflict: Russian forces intensified attacks on populated urban areas, with explosions in Kharkiv and an attack on Kyiv's TV tower. The Siege of Mariupol became one of the war's most devastating battles. The Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant caught fire after Russian shelling, creating global fears of a nuclear catastrophe.
Unprecedented Global Sanctions Target Russia: The international response involved a massive sanctions regime. Canada and the UK imposed new restrictions, while major corporations like Samsung, PayPal, Visa, and Mastercard suspended services in Russia. JPMorgan Chase warned the crisis could exceed the 1998 Russian financial collapse.
Humanitarian Crisis and Refugee Exodus: The war triggered Europe's largest refugee crisis since 1945, with millions of Ukrainians fleeing. UN access to besieged Mariupol remained blocked despite thousands of civilian deaths.
North Korea's Military Escalation: North Korea conducted its first full intercontinental ballistic missile test since 2017, launching the Hwasong-17. Analysts determined the missile could put the entire mainland United States within striking distance.
March 2022 was the month the broken transmission became a firestorm. The signal was no longer merely interrupted; it was being actively and brutally overwritten by the raw data of physical destruction. The primary global narrative was reduced to the physics of explosions, sieges, and sanctions.
The glitch of this era is this "Signal of Force." It is the experience of watching a complex system of information being consumed by a raw, elemental power. The nuances of news and diplomacy are rendered irrelevant by the undeniable reality of fire.
This artifact simulates a screen being consumed by that fire. The headlines of the month are not displayed as text to be read, but as embers in a rising inferno. The ghost in this machine is the memory of a world where information could be processed without being burned. Your cursor is not a tool of interaction, but a source of heat. As you move, you stoke the flames, accelerating the consumption of the signal and revealing the terrible, destructive beauty of a world being overwritten by force.