5-channel video installation
HD 16:9
Colour
Silent
12'04"
Throughout the video, we see a collage of amateur footage of anonymous women 'twerking' (a dance in which dancers move throwing or thrusting their hips back or shaking their buttocks, often in a low squatting stance). Koen Theys found the material in abundance on the internet. This contemporary phenomenon seems to indicate these women are only able to make contact with the outside world via their webcam. Koen Theys connects this seclusion with the Greek myth of Danaë, a recurring subject in the course of painting history. The story goes that Danaës father locked her up in her room after an oracle predicted that her son would murder him. By locking up Dana, he wanted to prevent that she would get offspring. But Zeus, the supreme god, managed to enter her room in the form of light rays and golden rain.
Koen Theys reinterprets this myth in Danaë, manipulating the incidence of light in the amateur films so that it evocatively enters the women's rooms through windows, televisions or computers. It is clear that each clip is an attempt by a person to gain attention from the world. The modus operandi however, turns this original goal into a painful confrontation. The faces are carefully hidden, accentuating the impersonal character of the bodies in a submissive position. The locations of the performances are kept in a hint of secrecy, they take place somewhere in the world, in the dull interiors of suburban apartments. With the conviction of a sociological study, the sum of individuals performing a new postindustrial ritual becomes a lyrical ode to humanity as a lost and disturbed insect-like species.
The film was screened or exhibited at:
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Scientific-Research Museum of the Academy of Arts of Russia, Saint-Petersburg (RU), 2017
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At The Gallery, Antwerp (BE), 2017
Credits:
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Produced by Koen Theys
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Concept, Realisation and Editing: Koen Theys