What should I do when I have to face the future?  

From my personal view, the future is unknown to me. I do not know what specific things will happen in the future, and I do not know where the future is. I think the future might be a destination that is constantly being sought. 

The empty room is a metaphor for the future. The future is an unknown state and uncertain. In the past and now we discuss future things, we are exploring future changes and possibilities. It is like we have been looking for "where this empty room is".  

When people talk about the future, they all use images from the present time. In previous eras, the imagining of the future gradually accumulated imagery. In fact, it also formed a history of human imagination. I want to show or compare the imagining of the future in different eras. And people's imagined future is a collection of different aspects, it isn't a single object. It is more like an infinite continuous space. As long as human beings are still in the universe and are able to continue to create and think, this room will not stop appearing in the future.  

As long as time is still flowing, we will always look for the future "empty room" on the way. 

Permanent Backflip 

I have been falling,

I am falling, 

I fall,

I will be falling, 

I will have been falling.

I tried to imagine the movement I would do when I was taking off, when I was in the air and also how I wanted to land.

Talking about the future is like talking about a Fata Morgana.

Something projected by a strange optical trick , something that already exists, around us, behind. A mere reflection into a far away land unknown.

And once we approach it, it vanishes, just as our expectations dissolve when they turn into being our presence. Still, what we see, what we project, sets us into motion.

Permanent backflip is the small story of a young man in dialogue with his memory about attempting a backflip off a bridge.

About fear, the connection between the mind and the body and the ability to let go.

About being able to fall backwards into the unknown, trying to trust.

Modern human life has a huge impact on humans’ general instinctive behavior based on day and night. The fixed-time work system makes different people have similar work and rest schedules. Insomnia has also become a common mental disorder in contemporary society. This is a trend that points to the future, that is, the impact of day and night on people's lives is gradually reduced. The external living environment has undergone tremendous changes, but our biological mechanisms have not changed in thousands of years. 

Insomnia is accompanied by endless restlessness at midnight. People's bodies are separated from the high-speed operation of society during the day, however, the brain does not have an external switch like a machine can be easily adjusted. The ancient reptilian brain and limbic system do not listen to the command of the cerebral cortex, and the fragments of the picture that are insensitive to time and space have their own lives in the dark. This carnival can only end in a peaceful sleep that can only start in the early morning. Please Follow the nine branches divided from the same open, you can spontaneously choose the screen you are watching but cannot see them all at once.

(Français si dessous)

Which way is forward?

What are we afraid of? What do we ignore? The more we push, the harder it pulls. The deeper the longing, the greater the fear. Luring beauty creates repulsion. What's ignored inside is reflected outside. 

Inside Out offers an attempt to look at the darkness within, the longing to be held, the deep-rooted fears. Glimpses of the inner conflicts we all share are projected and dissolved into each other. 

These efforts towards reconcilliation with ones inner self are communicated through the action and reaction of the male and female body. Apart yet a part from each other. 

Co-performer: Arnoud Rigter

Audio support: Jimi Hendrix

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De quoi avons-nous peur ? Qu'ignorons-nous ? Plus on pousse, plus ça tire fort. Plus le désir est profond, plus la peur est grande. Leurrer la beauté crée la répulsion. Ce qui est ignoré à l'intérieur se reflète à l'extérieur.

Inside Out propose une tentative de regarder l'obscurité à l'intérieur, le désir d'être tenu, les peurs profondément enracinées. Des aperçus sont projetés et dissous les uns dans les autres.

Ces efforts de réconciliation avec l'interne sont communiquées par l'action et la réaction du corps masculin et féminin. Réunion ensi que désunion.

We became so engaged in modern technologies that slowly without realizing we transform more and more into the “Humanoids” presented in Dystopian science-fiction novels.

When we sleep, our body shuts off all the processes that engage our minds in critical and analytical purposes, giving us the space to recharge our batteries (a Peaceful place) 

a place where Freedom is not just a concept but the nucleus of Life. 

When we dream, we are accessing another dimension between the physical reality and the spiritual universe. Another dimension: where Past-Present-Future are all existing simultaneously.  Using this space of psychological exploration, I wanted to transmit the growing anxieties of today’s society that are part of our daily life. Toxic News feeding our Ignorance on Reality.

 My project aims to bring the viewer in a journey of self-discovery, through observing and progressively understanding the general idea about the future of our Selves in this World.

We become more and more disconnected from nature, losing our intuition, basic survival skills and essential human values. We are too busy with daily technologies, in fast growing competitive industries. 

The Answer is to Look Inside.

What can we say about the future? History offers us insights through hard-learned lessons, and we should be careful not to forget them. However, thoughts that are based solely on the past may turn out to be outdated. Sometimes a fresh perspective is needed, one that invites and celebrates the unknown. Humans are so quick to name almost everything they encounter, as though all of it is fixed. Many situations evolve and change, they are not stable. What makes people act in certain ways? Many factors are involved. There are endless things we don’t know about the other person but judgements are made in a split second. When we pin everything down with words to try to frame it, we may miss out on alternative outcomes cause we’re not open to see them, thereby undermining the experience. It dissolves in front of our eyes. What would happen if we considered the present moment as something that is too fresh to name? What becomes visible when definition is postponed, when we stay in the unknown for a little longer? What kind of future will we arrive at? Will we miss the ground under our feet? Will we rewrite our stories? Or will they remain unwritten in an unresolved mystery? 

‘The opposite of exploration is ignorance. To be ignorant means not curious enough, not

passionate to learn, not hungry to discover what lies behind the horizon in the unfamiliar lands

of nobody. How could the world exist without not knowing?

Places so far away suddenly become transparent, closer than our own skin. To explore means

to travel in or through, to alter, to search, to make familiar, to start a conversation, to usurp, to

get to know, to discover, to appreciate, to appropriate, to colonise, to get into the movement the things that will never stay the same. How can the world exist with the irreversible?

Manoeuvring through time and space to move out of our bodies, intestinal motility calls into

motion. The landing.’

The film is divided into three parts, each of them responds to the proximity of a body. The story

was initially inspired by a news article announcing there are currently 96 human waste bags left

on the Moon, followed by the news about Perseverance Rover landing on Mars in February

2021. This information made me curious about the ambiguity of exploration and ignorance and

the triptych developed into a study of the close and distant. Through listening to abjected bodily

matter, the film invites us to land nearby our bodies with our more-than-humans.

The second part of the triptych translates belly sounds into a visual language and captures them

on reversal film developed with a DIY urine developer. 

The third part is a collaboration with

dancer Femke Adema

In the political context of China, the restriction of voice is an impenetrable dark cloud covering the entire society. "Keywords" are blocked, "special" speeches will be detained. Everyone lives like a thoughtless pipelined machine. Each part of the society is manipulated, just like Truman's world, unable to distinguish between true and false. In the past, present and future, it never changes. The world is mute. 

<MUTE> is set in 2025. An internet celebrity’s live-streaming on the Internet. The film has three meaningful layers: 

The first one is the protagonist. She is a tool used by capital. In China, there is a popular way to make money now: companies send their products to Internet celebrities and let them photograph these products during their live-streaming so that the audience will have the desire to buy them. But these companies don’t care how, even if the celebrity is just repeating meaningless actions during the live streaming. 

The second one is the audience. They are the product of restrictions. Their anger that cannot be expressed in real life all transferred to the online environment. Malicious, verbal abuse turns to  commenting to the celebrity. They never care about the content of the live streaming. 

The third one is you. You’re the judge, the person who has the right to choose. 

After turning off the camera, will tomorrow be a repeating day? 

Can I stop the noise?

I long for a world where I can be present in my own life.  A world without my phone, like back then, before the noise. 

But now I take the buzzing everywhere I go. Seducing me to engage, pulling me in, suffocating me. How long can I spend without checking, refreshing? I feel like I’m drowning. But I’m addicted and I can’t let it go. 

I hear the sound of an incoming message, I just can’t resist. You pull me in, envelop me in your cacophony of noise. Screaming into a sea of data. 

I can’t focus anymore. I can’t relax. I need to answer. I need to check. 

Are you still here? 

Where do I stop, and you begin? I am everywhere and nowhere at the same time. The noise surrounds and howls for attention, I am just so tired, my battery is drained.

Can I stop the noise?

Noise visually explores the struggle of living in a time where we are constantly distracted. Our digital lives are merging with reality. We take our phones with us, everywhere we go.  We are online all the time, connected but disconnected. 

Can you stop the noise?

Before the clouds stop moving 

Before it gets dark everywhere 

Before my footprints disappear 

Before the whiteness loses its purity 

Before I understand the meaning of time 

I want to stay in the moment 

Here and now 

The idea for the future is an abstract notion of time. 

Time is the important way of thinking about this concept that the movie addresses  and asks: 

“Is the future now? “ 

Alan Watts, a British philosopher who was a source of inspiration says that: 

“What you do is what the whole universe is doing at the place you call here and now. Because of our common sense, we think of time as a one-way motion from the past, through the present, and on into the future. And that carries along with it another impression which is to say, that life moves from the past into the future in such a way that what happens now and what will happen is always the result of what has happened in the past and in other words we seem to be driven along.” 

So everything in the universe happens in the present moment and this moment is precious for us.