Ahwesh / van Hesteren / Rist

Warm Objects (2007, 6’) – Peggy Ahwesh

Warm Objects was produced in close collaboration with the engineering research center MIRTHE (Mid-InfraRed Technologies for Health and the Environment), an organization dedicated to the development of optical trace gas sensing systems. Utilizing MIRTHE's imaging technology, scenes of everyday incidents are transformed by infrared photography into glimpses of our world through an alien lens. Two insertions of on-screen text betray Ahwesh's ominous implications. The first is a meditation on Rudyard Kipling's oft-quoted "Truth is the first casualty of war," while the second takes the form of a hastily crafted e-mail, suggesting that its author has become withdrawn and pessimistic out of fear of some pending disaster. Warm Objectsis a portrait of the world in uncertain and paranoid times.

The Vision Machine (1997, 20’) – Peggy Ahwesh

Here Ahwesh's heterogeneous textual approach comes to the fore, as she juxtaposes narrative, faux documentary, comedic and "serious" footage, and merges film, video, and Pixelvision. Suggestions and meanings accumulate: austere, theoretical text is interrupted by shots of women relating bawdy (sexist) jokes; classic R&B music plays while women stomp on records and pour alcohol on the floor. The Vision Machine is a fragmented inquiry into issues of gender, language and representation.

I Want to go Higher (2023, 23’) – Amanda van Hesteren

Four male models make a sincere attempt to get to know themselves better during a retreat in Thailand. While the most sensitive boy, Arjan, actively talks about the patterns he wants to break and spends a lot of time in bed, the most dominant boy in the group, Jamal, likes to be the center of attention. Among themselves, the boys behave over the top; riding naked on a scooter, renting exaggerated villas and doing photo shoots for Instagram, while you keep feeling something chafe inside. In private conversations with filmmaker Amanda van Hesteren, we learn more about their individual insecurities as the boys' vulnerabilities unfold in different ways.

I Want to See How You See (2003, 5’) – Pipilotti Rist

Rist explores the macrocosm of humanity in a video art and music collaboration. A lyrical tale of a witch's coven is played over images of a person where each body part symbolically represents an area of the world.

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