Current

Before becoming a filmmaker, Steve McQueen is, above all, an artist and a video artist. His work delves into a contemplative and static aesthetic, deferring the transient nature of captivating images. It’s a visual realm and a radical narrative that we can witness in the stunning ‘Hunger,’ McQueen’s debut feature film. Similar to his video art creations, McQueen’s approach is presented simply as a visual reflection where sensations and experiences outweigh any intellectual analysis or explanation.

The overhead projection, while not displaying moving images, evokes a continuous flow due to the off-screen fading of five 35 mm slides. We observe a flat body of water, the Limmat in Zurich, and discover a bicycle that has come to a standstill at the bottom of the river. The images gradually overlap, creating the illusion of the bicycle slightly changing position with each image reverberating into the next until it eventually dissipates. The intensity of light varies from one slide to the next, resulting in a play of shadows and light, movement and stillness, reality and illusion.