Possessed

 

 

Programmed alongside Metahaven’s exhibition VERSION HISTORY, the artists introduce the first UK screening of their feature-length audio-visual essay Possessed (2018), directed in collaboration with Rob Schröder.

 

Threaded through with the recurring, ritualistic motif of the extended arm holding a smartphone, Possessed is a darkly arresting diagnosis of a hybrid digital space between the inside and the outside. Comprising found material from digital platforms and cinematic fictional sequences filmed at a former military airbase on the border between Bosnia and Croatia, the film builds around the tension between the obsession with the self, catalysed by social media, and our ready access to images of other people’s lives. Technological infiltration into everyday experience is projected as a cultish form of possession, where new modes of imaging the world extend from militaristic innovation. The film features contributions from theorists Alex Williams and Nick Srnicek, and a score by musician Laurel Halo.