Personal Attention (2023). Exhibition view: Udstillingsstedet Q.
7-channel video installation. Loop. 4K. 4:5. 4-channel sound + 3 x stereo sound.
Languages: English and Danish
Subtitles: English
Anybody who reads this text has probably experienced the suffocating feeling of being caught in their own mind. The very physical feeling of being confined within one’s own voice that loudly comments on everything that that we do, or don’t do... We know this voice very well, almost better than we know ourselves. And that is the problem.
— Frida Sandström, Escaping Myself (2023), in dialogue with Confessions
Confessions presents six encounters with what I have called "internalized others": a well-meaning ASMRtist, a bro in a gym, a fuck boy in a metro tunnel, a live streamer in a bedroom, a homeless man trapped in a lost future and a transgressive psychoanalyst. Characters - phantoms of memory and idiosyncratic translation - who compliment, subjugate, assault and virtually stroke the viewer’s cheeks with soft whispers. Existing as one great double bind, Confessions is at once a self-portrait and social critique.
Personal Attention (2023). Exhibition view: Udstillingsstedet Q.
Personal Attention (2023). Exhibition view: Udstillingsstedet Q.
You Know Very Well That I'm Not Really What You Think I Am (2023), My Name (2023). Exhibition view: Udstillingsstedet Q.
Personal Attention (2023), You Know Very Well That I'm Not Really What You Think I Am (2023) and My Name (2023).
Confessions is divided into five chapters:
IN THE SKY OF THE MIND
Length: 02:57 min. Single channel video. Stereo sound. Loop.
PERSONAL ATTENTION
Length: 19:02 min. 4-channel video. 4-channel sound. Loop.
LIKE I COULD GROW IF YOU LET ME
Acrylic mirror glass mounted on aluminum frame. Dimensions: 200 cm x 300 cm 4 cm.
YOU KNOW VERY WELL THAT I’M NOT REALLY WHAT YOU THINK I AM
Length: 03:34 min. Single channel video. Stereo sound. Loop.
MY NAME
Length: 03:15 min. Single channel video. Stereo sound. Loop.
With Diêm Camille, Johan Bech Jespersen, Klaus Tange, Carla Eleonora Feigenberg, Niels Justesen, Camilla Søeberg
WRITER, DIRECTOR & CINEMATOGRAPHER Jacob Schill
SCRIPT DEVELOPMENT Luke Buckley, Daro Hansen, Jonas Algers and Gala Hernández López
EDITOR Grit Tind Mikkelsen and Jacob Schill
ADDITIONAL EDITING Daniel Abraham Basse and Jan-Niklas Thape
CASTING ASSISTANCE Gro Therp
SOUND RECORDIST Rasmus Emil Mikkelsen
RUNNER Julie Nymann
Thanks to Jane Jin Kaisen, Agnieszka Polska and Maria Colomer Canyelles
In a time when our lives are increasingly spent on observing, analyzing and interpreting ourselves - as well as tying ourselves to our own identity - Confessions embodies a cognitive dissonance: the overwhelming contradiction of constantly both doubting and affirming oneself. I believe that we by voicing our pains and struggles of subjectification might expose emotional, cognitive and social dissonances, as well as open ourselves up for new understandings and connections. We might even find ways of breaking out of our ceaselessly looping thoughts and inner tyrants. That is at least my hope.
