POLYCEPHALY IN D

Michael Robinson
USA, 2021
23 min

Polycephaly in D is a densely collaged exploration of the existential drift, collective trauma, and psychological free-fall of the contemporary moment. Leaping, falling, and meeting your new self in an earthquake; we lose one head so as to grow another.

As bewildering as it is sensuous, Polycephaly in D exhibits some excellent work of popular culture archivism, highlighting a polyphonic influx of images from contemporaneity that reads the acute anxieties, both individual and collective, of the past few decades in between the lines. Cinema, TV, the Internet – iconic images, viral ones, tender images, intrusive ones: the influx takes you by storm, as if you were falling into the same abyss of existence that the film’s two fictional telepaths seem to be overwhelmed with. From The Hunger Games to anime, Michael Robinson formulates a chronicle of recent human history as defined by its visual medium, equally celebrating small joys and underlining a haunting feeling of impending doom. (Dora Leu)

Date and Location

27th of September, 21:00, Cinemateca Eforie

Tickets

Premii și festivaluri

Michael Robinson

Michael Robinson’s collage films explore the emotional mechanics of popular media, the nature of heartache, and the instability of the reality we inhabit. His work has shown internationally at venues including London’s National Portrait Gallery, The 2012 Whitney Biennial, MoMA, Walker Art Center, The Austrian Film Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, and MMCA Seoul, and has been regularly included in major festivals like Rotterdam, New York, London, Berlinale, Hong Kong, and Toronto. Michael resides in Los Angeles and has received support from FIDLab Marseille, Creative Capital, MacDowell, The Kazuko Trust, The Wexner Center for the Arts, Teton ArtLab, and The Headlands Center for the Arts.

  • Technical sheet
  • WRITER/PRODUCER/CAMERA/EDITING/SOUND DESIGN: Michael Robinson
  • CAST: James Andrew
  • ORIGINAL MUSIC: Evening Botany
  • ANIMATION: Nate Makuch

 

 

 

Future (After) Life

All films →

POLYCEPHALY IN D

Michael Robinson | Duration 23 min

Polycephaly in D is a densely collaged exploration of the existential drift, collective trauma, and psychological free-fall of the contemporary moment. Leaping, falling, and meeting your new self in an earthquake; we lose one head so as to grow another.

LIFE, AS A DREAM

Zhao Xu | Duration 20 min

Five workers are asleep. What are they dreaming of? Their voices recount memories of their dreams, yet they seem to be talking about their own daily lives. Suggestions of precarity and deep exhaustion creep in through lyrical, illusory moments.

HARDLY WORKING

Total Refusal | Duration 21 min

We find ourselves inside a video game. The NPCs (non-playable characters) are leading their dull lives on loop, bringing mechanical bustle into the simulation. But what can their repetitive gestures say about life and labour under capitalism?

AGRILOGISTICS

Gerard Ortín Castellví | Duration 21 min

Agrilogistics looks at recent technological transformations in contemporary industrial agriculture, where everything is processed through cameras and data sets. Only at night do things come ‘alive’, when plants, animals and machines form new entanglements.

3 DIALOGUES ABOUT THE FUTURE

Alina Manolache | Duration 14 min

Three pairs of robots engage in dialogue. How does artificial intelligence see the world? How does it see itself? There is a hidden tenderness in their algorithmic musings – what seems to preoccupy the robots most is the definition of being human.

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