We May Think 2017

As We May Think – an associative approach to selecting a group of works.

Curator in residence 2016  Alice Butler. Screened at the IFI Dublin 25/02/2017

Eschewing an overarching theme in favour of ‘associative trails’, this selection by Alice Butler, MExIndex curator-in-residence for 2016,  indicates a possible route through the MExIndex website, posing questions about our relationship to language and its power over us to shape what and how we think. The films in this selection offer ‘a way out’ of our usual mode of thought, and thereby help us shift, or at least examine, our collective default settings.

This selection specifically focuses on cities and landscapes as the physical terrains of possible futures. These are the sites where the effects or the lack of civilization are felt and seen most. They are also the sites where greater authoritarianism and control is exerted upon everyday life of individuals and citizens as a whole, threatening a vision of a trusted future. How do we adapt to such increased control? Is it possible to contradict, defy or simply withdraw?

Some films refer to an ambiguous time that could either be the past, the present or the future. In this selection they are offered as examples of artistic envisioning of how a near or distant future might look like. This screening intends to open up these films into a larger enquiry about possible futures in line with the ambivalence of our time and uncertainties about the future.