(CA 2019, 7 min)

Disasters Under the Sun (2019) continues Rafman’s journey into the heart of contemporary alienation and the paradoxes of modernity illustrating once more that the very digital and technological instruments that estrange us from ourselves can inform us of the source of our alienation. The film portrays a post-human dystopia featuring faceless 3-D avatars continuously tortured in abstract digital space, a terrifying image of a future where all humanity is uploaded to a virtual purgatory and endlessly abused. Or is it also a brutal representation of the present moment and the effect that a world dominated by algorithms has on our flesh and psyche? As Rafman explains: “My latest videos and installations have a darker tone, delving into the murkier corners of the Web. What concerns me is the general sense of entrapment and isolation felt by many as social and political life becomes increasingly abstracted and experience dematerialized. There is no viable or compelling avenue for effecting change or emancipating consciousness, so the energy that once motivated revolution or critique gets redirected into strange and sometimes disturbing expression.”