Short, observational videos of individuals in public space that function as extended portraits of mood, demeanor and body language.

CHICAGO - Election Day Portraits, 2008

Interspersed with the truncated sonic portraits of composer Luc Ferrari’s final composition, Les Anecdotiques (2004), a visual equivalent of short street portraits in Chicago on election day, 2008 is woven into the fabric of sound and voice. The drama, mystery, and small narratives to be found in the everyday unfold in threads and slices of time, all on the very day of Barack Obama’s election to the Presidency. Private lives are seemingly brought to the surface, slowed to give a heightened sense of the passage of time, the combination of voice and image hinting at interior monologues.

In the center of Tokyo, a tightly packed outdoor smoking zone illustrates the ritual social order and conformity of public-facing presentations of self, exterior surfaces accompanied by evidence of the private, protective cocoons of their interior lives.

ATTENTION

Accompanying a cautionary discourse by ethicist Tristan Harris, the co-founder of the Center for Humane Technology, is an extended view of a young woman online, responding over time to social media. Harris’s analysis of the potential harm of social media warns of a dystopian future as our minds increasingly become subject to influence, persuasion, and manipulation. He points to the steady re-direction of our attention that is leaving us increasingly vulnerable, with dire consequences that will fully manifest sooner rather than later.