Edie – screen test & Electric Bird (2019)

This project exists in two formats: linear film version for large scale wall projection (“Electric Bird”) and separated clips to be screened on multiple TV screens in loop version (“Edie – screen test”).

The film ‘Electric Bird’ is dealing with the confusion between real life experiences and relationships, technically simulated relationships, in particular through online digital media, fueled by the desire to fit in and be popular, and giving up one’s particular identity in this quest. The film features the stop-motion puppet character ‘Edie W.’, loosely based on Andy Warhol’s Factory girl Edie Sedgwick, and is inspired by Hans Christian Andersen’s literary fairy tale “The Nightingale”, about a wealthy Chinese emperor who prefers a decorated mechanical bird to the gorgeous song of a natural nightingale. The film is using found poetry on the topic of disillusioned relationships read in an automatic computer voice, glitch art and experimental translation of image files to sound files. Watching Edie in her room with an infant lying on the bed, she is visibly talking, but we are unable to hear what she says. The film concludes watching her feet dancing to the Velvet Underground song “I’m Set Free (to find a new illusion)”. The film is a visual and audio allegory to the increasing alienation of human beings and absurd technology that is replacing actual meaningful communication, interaction, and contact.