Films : Hypnomart : direction & collaboration
Joe Magee
artist statement
The emergent ‘story’ of Hypnomart highlights the journeys of entire family units to shopping centres. Are they just buying things or are they fulfiling other, more primordial, needs?
Observing people as they go about their shopping often reveals an apparent state of hypnosis. In passing through the revolving doors the shoppers enter a shared drug-like trance, because the environment is designed to be (or appear) clinical, contained and safe.
The proliferation and awareness of surveillance cameras heightens the sense that one is on a set, and on display. The film in part adopts the role of a surveillance camera operator; how can he, she or (increasingly) it deconstruct and interpret such a barrage of minute clues and subtle behaviours?
artist’s website
Joe’s own website
Alistair Gentry
artist’s website
Alistair’s own website
