Projections Program 9

Louis Henderson, Michael Robinson, and Sara Magenheimer in person!

Life in the Cloud: What are the material and emotional consequences of a digital world that has altered our bodily existence?

Radio at Night
James Richards, Germany/UK, 2015, digital projection, 8m
“Responding to Derek Jarman’s visual strategies and montage techniques, Radio at Night carves out a sensual and sonic space of representation. The video is an assemblage of distorting and looping audiovisual material, including industrial documentation, medical imaging, news broadcasts, and a specially composed soundtrack sung in C minor.”—James Richards

All That Is Solid
Louis Henderson, France/UK/Ghana, 2014, DCP, 15m
“As technological progress pushes forward, piles of obsolete computers are discarded and recycled. Sent to the coast of West Africa, these computers are thrown into wastegrounds such as Agbogbloshie in Accra, Ghana. The e-waste is recovered and burned to extract the precious metals contained within. Eventually the metals are melted and reformed into new objects to be sold—it is a strange system of recycling, a kind of reverse neocolonial mining, whereby the African is searching for mineral resources in the materials of Europe. Through showing these laborious processes, the video challenges the capitalist myth of the immateriality of new technology, revealing the mineral weight with which the Cloud is grounded to its earthly origins.”—Louis Henderson

Mad Ladders
Michael Robinson, USA, 2015, digital projection, 9m
“A modern prophet’s visions of mythical destruction and transformation are recounted across a turbulent geometric ceremony of rising curtains, swirling setpieces, and unveiled idols from music television’s past. Together, these parallel cults of revelation unlock a pathway to the far side of the sun.”—Michael Robinson
World Premiere

Erysichthon
Jon Rafman, Canada, 2015, digital projection, 8m
“Erysichthon is the third and final film in a Dante-esque adventure across the far-flung corners of the Web. Plunging into the depths of Internet obsessions and transgressions, the videos assemble an unsettling parade of images from the mundane to the erotic to the violent, presenting the full breadth and depth of human desires as mediated by the flow of data.”—Jon Rafman
World Premiere

Slow Zoom Long Pause
Sara Magenheimer, USA, 2015, digital projection, 13m
“Q: How do we know it’s real?
A: It feels real
Q: What if fake feels real?
A: Then it’s real
Q: What color is the sound of your name?
A: Peach
Q: What comes next?
A: A
Q: Can you think of a thing that itself is a symbol, too?
A: A
Q: Do you know anyone whose name is just one letter?
A: I
Q: If your first name was only one letter, which letter would it be?
A: I”—Sara Magenheimer

Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen
Cécile B. Evans, UK, 2014, digital projection, 22m
“Hyperlinks or It Didn’t Happen is narrated by the failed CGI rendering of a recently deceased actor (PHIL). In an intensification of so-called hyperlink cinema, the lives of a group of digital agents—render ghosts, spambots, holograms—unfold across various settings, genres, and modes of representation. Multiple storylines build, converge, and collapse around overarching ideas of existence without anatomy: the ways in which we live and work within the machine. Throughout, questions are raised about what it means to be materially conscious today and the rights of the personal data we release.”—Cécile B. Evans