JUST WANT YOU TO BE (2021)
HD video, 15:52 min, color, sound

“The promise of happiness acquires an even more powerful hold in times of crisis.”

Just Want You To Be collages the idiosyncratic archive of personal mobile phone videos to connect individual moments of ordinary affect (driving with granny, teenagers at a fun ride, petting a donkey) to the social norms they point at (what is a family, what is freedom, what is a pet). The video is inspired by and uses quotes from Sara Ahmed’s queer, feminist and anti-racist analysis of how the promise of happiness functions as a moral imperative and disciplinary technique.

The work was commissioned by medienwerk.NRW as part of the series “REVISITED: Reservate der Sehnsucht”, that asked actors in media art and digital culture to embark on an artistic research about the exhibition “Reservate der Sehnsucht” by HMKV Hartware MedienKunstVerein, which took place in 1998 in Dortmund and presented 30 international artistic positions.

credits:
Ale Bachlechner: script, camera, editing
Jonathan Kastl: sound mixing
Julian Prießen: music
Olivia Platzer: artistic assistance

presented online at medienwerk.NRW

shown at:
glasmoog Cologne, Oct 23rd 2022
Cinema Next Tour, Cinematograph Innsbruck, Oct 18th 2023
“Leap of Faith – Transmediale Fotografie”, Jahresausstellung Nordrhein-Westfälische Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Künste and part of düsseldorf photo+ May 15th – Sep 15th 2024