DESTROY ME MORE: SELF-DESTRUCTION AND MUTUAL ANNIHILATION AS A TRANSCENDENTAL ART
SEPTEMBER
“A journey toward the estrangement of the self from the self…”
—Susan Sontag
DESTROY ME MORE is a series of films about self-destruction that go beyond punishment. Rather, they depict a kind of self-destruction that approaches a total untethering of one’s ‘self’ from one’s physical form, breaking through the limits of consciousness. These films deal with characters who have an uncompromising impulse to self-immolate and become something beyond themselves, beyond human—whether in complete solitude or total enrapture in another person, catapulting towards annihilation. It’s romantic, it’s grotesque, played out, idealistic, problematic, and yet—it’s true. And it’s impossible outside of fiction.
In the Era of Self-Expression that we live in, a film about self-destruction is a powerful thing. Rebecca J. Erickson observes “an increasing fetishisation of the individual, such that the search for, or articulation of, the ‘true self’ has become an all-consuming project,” with authenticity as the new ultimate consumer good. Instead of working towards building authentic characters, films about the obscene hidden desires of individuals like those in this series present the impossibility of this self-obsessed task. Representations of the self-destructive tendency, that dark taboo desire that lurks within every individual, at some time in their lives, in some part of their psyche, take individuality to its most extreme state—a person taking the ultimate control over their own fate, ironically ending up in annihilation.
“Works dealing with that specific and sharpest inflection of the themes of lust, ‘the obscene,’ [are about death]. It’s toward the gratifications of death, succeeding and surpassing those of eros, that every truly obscene quest tends.”
—Susan Sontag
Come lose yourself at the Beacon this September.
—Susan Sontag
DESTROY ME MORE is a series of films about self-destruction that go beyond punishment. Rather, they depict a kind of self-destruction that approaches a total untethering of one’s ‘self’ from one’s physical form, breaking through the limits of consciousness. These films deal with characters who have an uncompromising impulse to self-immolate and become something beyond themselves, beyond human—whether in complete solitude or total enrapture in another person, catapulting towards annihilation. It’s romantic, it’s grotesque, played out, idealistic, problematic, and yet—it’s true. And it’s impossible outside of fiction.
In the Era of Self-Expression that we live in, a film about self-destruction is a powerful thing. Rebecca J. Erickson observes “an increasing fetishisation of the individual, such that the search for, or articulation of, the ‘true self’ has become an all-consuming project,” with authenticity as the new ultimate consumer good. Instead of working towards building authentic characters, films about the obscene hidden desires of individuals like those in this series present the impossibility of this self-obsessed task. Representations of the self-destructive tendency, that dark taboo desire that lurks within every individual, at some time in their lives, in some part of their psyche, take individuality to its most extreme state—a person taking the ultimate control over their own fate, ironically ending up in annihilation.
“Works dealing with that specific and sharpest inflection of the themes of lust, ‘the obscene,’ [are about death]. It’s toward the gratifications of death, succeeding and surpassing those of eros, that every truly obscene quest tends.”
—Susan Sontag
Come lose yourself at the Beacon this September.
