Address to the Audience: A Prelude  2016
Duration: 7.28”
HD 1080p, sound, Pal

The film is inspired by Kafka’s short story A Report to an Academy in which an ‘erstwhile ape’ transforms himself into a human being within the short span of five years. The work combines an edited transcript of the original story in the form of an audio narration with a three-dimensional animation of the human genome. The visualization follows the journey narrated by the story from the Gold Coast, now Togo then a German protectorate, and weaves together themes past and present. From colonialism, the trade in wild animals and the early ethnic displays in ‘human zoos’ to the development of the modern zoo, pioneered by Carl Hagenbeck, the story touches upon the rise of the modern day spectacle, mass entertainment and the exploitation of global resources in the pursuit of progress and economic growth under capitalism. Considering the points of reference Kafka makes and his ironic turn on the Darwin's theory of evolution the story prefigures a new evolutionary determination, one that is predominantly driven by technological innovation.

Credits:
 
Voice narration: Matthew Heathcote
Sound recording: Pete Rowley, Attic Attack
Animation: Charles Gershom
Camera & Editing: Monika Oechsler
Direction: Monika Oechsler

​Premiered at the Swedenborg Film Festival, London, 2016.

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