MTU Library Catalogue

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Pierre Huyghe : Untitled (human mask) / Mark Lewis.

By: Lewis, Mark, 1958- [author].
Material type: materialTypeLabelBookSeries: One work: Publisher: London : Afterall Books, 2021Copyright date: ©2021Description: 125 pages : photographs (chiefly colour) ; 21 cm.Content type: text | still image Media type: unmediated Carrier type: volumeISBN: 9781846382130 (paperback).Subject(s): Huyghe, Pierre, 1962- Untitled (human mask) | Huyghe, Pierre, 1962- -- Criticism and interpretation | Experimental films -- Criticism and interpretationDDC classification: 700.92 HUY Summary: "An examination of Pierre Huyghe's post-apocalyptic Untitled (Human Mask), which asks whether our human future may be one of remnants and mimicry. Pierre Huyghe's 2014 film Untitled (Human Mask) combines images of a post-apocalyptic world (actual footage of deserted streets close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 2011) with a haunting scene of a monkey working in an empty restaurant wearing a human mask and a wig. She's a girl! The flat, emotionless almost automaton state of the mask and the artificial glossy hair topped even with a child's bow, suggests that she, the monkey, might be a character from Japanese Noh theatre. But there's no music. Instead Huyghe's film evinces the terrifying possibility that our own, human, future might just be one of remnants and mimicry; that the deserted streets of Fukushima and the monkey's recognizable, alienating chimeric performance is all that might survive us. Untitled (Human Mask) presents a pluperfect world with extinction the endgame for a civilization that cared little for the present, dreaming only of a future that inevitably and necessarily could not include it." -- Library of Congress.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number Status Barcode
General lending MTU Crawford College of Art and Design Library Lending 700.92 HUY (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Available 00232270
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

An examination of Pierre Huyghe's post-apocalyptic Untitled (Human Mask) , which asks whether our human future may be one of remnants and mimicry.

Pierre Huyghe's 2014 film Untitled (Human Mask) combines images of a post-apocalyptic world (actual footage of deserted streets close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 2011) with a haunting scene of a monkey working in an empty restaurant wearing a human mask and a wig. She's a girl! The flat, emotionless almost automaton state of the mask and the artificial glossy hair topped even with a child's bow, suggests that she, the monkey, might be a character from Japanese Noh theatre. But there's no music. Instead Huyghe's film evinces the terrifying possibility that our own, human, future might just be one of remnants and mimicry; that the deserted streets of Fukushima and the monkey's recognizable, alienating chimeric performance is all that might survive us. Untitled (Human Mask) presents a pluperfect world with extinction the endgame for a civilization that cared little for the present, dreaming only of a future that inevitably and necessarily could not include it.

Includes bibliographical references (pages 122-125).

"An examination of Pierre Huyghe's post-apocalyptic Untitled (Human Mask), which asks whether our human future may be one of remnants and mimicry. Pierre Huyghe's 2014 film Untitled (Human Mask) combines images of a post-apocalyptic world (actual footage of deserted streets close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 2011) with a haunting scene of a monkey working in an empty restaurant wearing a human mask and a wig. She's a girl! The flat, emotionless almost automaton state of the mask and the artificial glossy hair topped even with a child's bow, suggests that she, the monkey, might be a character from Japanese Noh theatre. But there's no music. Instead Huyghe's film evinces the terrifying possibility that our own, human, future might just be one of remnants and mimicry; that the deserted streets of Fukushima and the monkey's recognizable, alienating chimeric performance is all that might survive us. Untitled (Human Mask) presents a pluperfect world with extinction the endgame for a civilization that cared little for the present, dreaming only of a future that inevitably and necessarily could not include it." -- Library of Congress.

Table of contents provided by Syndetics

  • What's it Like to be Almost Like Something Else? (p. 9)
  • Untitled (p. 10)
  • Disposing of Leftovers (p. 14)
  • Prologue and Disaster Mise en Scène (p. 25)
  • The Abduction of Gesture (p. 28)
  • Inside (p. 29)
  • Singerie (p. 40)
  • Back to the Restaurant (p. 44)
  • Film Consciousness (p. 52)
  • We are the Invention of Animals (p. 56)
  • Conclusion (p. 59)
  • Notes (p. 122)

Author notes provided by Syndetics

Mark Lewisis the series editor of the Afterall Books One Work series and professor of fine art at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, where he co-founded Afterall in 1998.