Second Nature

The nature which addresses the camera is profoundly different from that which addresses the human eye. It differs in that, instead of a world permeated by human subjectivity, film shows one permeated by the unconscious. Technology has presented itself as a second nature, no less fundamental than that faced by prehistoric society. As a result, time and time again, humanity undergoes a similar instruction in relation to this second nature as it pushes for development – which it invented, but which it no longer controls - as it did in the past in relation to the first. What these films show however, is that the unconscious can be brought to the surface, expressed willingly through spaces which border the surreal, through experiments with man-made computer viruses and the effects they have on media and mediums, as well as through seemingly randomized montages of various images as well as image production mechanisms and their take on incoming disaster. We are urged to consider a default, unaltered state of being while also understanding the permanence of exploitation. And we are helped to reconcile film as a body, which contains the duality of spirit and matter. (Emil Vasilache)