RANDOM MAN PRESENTS: PSYCHOLOGY TODAY by EXTREME ANIMALS
Dir. Jacob Ciocci & David Wightman
30 min. USA.
In English.
Content Warning: STROBING LIGHTS
FRIDAY, MARCH 18 – 7:30 w Q+A (this event will be $10)
SATURDAY, MARCH 26 – 7:30 w Q+A (this event will be $10)
In information theory, the repetition of messages tends towards the obliteration of meaning. This theorem is vitally demonstrated in Extreme Animals’ 2021 video Psychology Today, which traces the algorithmically accelerated decomposition of images from the post-millennial cultural imaginary: Shrek, the Joker, and other depressive icons of our interminable financial crisis inspire a legion of exhausted reenactments by children’s birthday party workers and freelance Blender artists. Interwoven with motivational programming staged at depreciating levels of conviction, the final assembly speaks not so much to the experience of overstimulation as to the unique combination of sensory hypertrophy and apathy characteristic of life post-2020.
This is presentation is the first of a collaboration between Spectacle and the Queens-based art publisher Random Man Editions, which specializes in broadcasting various genres of the indescribable and documenting fringe practices across analogue and digital media. More information available at randomman.net.
“Anarchy prevails—children covered in paint stand defiant against parental authority in suburban bathrooms, a decapitated snake, running on pure electrochemical reflex, bites its own twitching body, crows mass ominously over a McDonalds—but this found footage is culled from corners of the internet that still feel largely wholesome. They’re more verité cinema than viral capitalism.” – Claire Evans
“In Psychology Today, empathy and identification find a place next to schadenfreude. Plaintive wails mix with clarion calls, chirping electronics with heavy metal guitars. The abject and the inspirational are everywhere entwined. Found footage combines with stock images and animated gifs as well as artist-made drawings and Flash animations. Slow-motion video is subjected to stroboscopic cuts, building to purgative crescendos.” – BOMB Magazine