here & now

“I want a president,” by activist and artist Zoe Leonard, recited by Myyki Blanco. As relevant now as in 1992.

One of the most exciting components of the current Dreamlands show at the Whitney Museum is Terence Broad’s autoencoding of the film Blade Runner. An extension of Broad’s autoencoding works in which a computer watching reconstructs through what roughly amounts to artificial memory, his Blade Runner version is a particularly potent expression of the movie’s underlying themes of AI. In some ways, the visualized autoencoding portents the projection of the incipient machine soul, like the foggy memory of an infant human.

One of the finer cinematic offerings you may have overlooked this past year is Anna Biller’s lavish third wave production Love Witch (2016). Building on the retro camp meticulously constructed in 2007’s ambitious Viva, Love Witch follows the witch Elaine as she pursues love through sorcery and leaves a trail of her romantic victims. With it’s magical elements, celebration of femme sensuality and power, and sixties maximalism, the film mysteriously links to elements of today’s internet youth feminism. A comforting film in the face of recent political phallocentrism, perhaps.