Geo Barcan: Metahaven Guest Lecture

The work of Metahaven consists of filmmaking, writing, and design. Films by Metahaven include Chaos Theory (2021), Hometown (2018), Eurasia (Questions on Happiness) (2018), and Information Skies (2016, nominated for the 2017 European Film Awards). Solo exhibitions include Passphrases, State of Concept Athens (2021), Turnarounds, e-flux, New York (2019), Version History, ICA London (2018), Earth, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam (2018), Hometown, Izolyatsia, Kyiv (2018), and Islands in the Cloud, MoMA PS1, New York (2013). Public lectures include “An Evening with Metahaven,” The Museum of Modern Art, New York (2019), “After The Sprawl,” Castello di Rivoli, Turin (2019), and “Inhabitant,” Harvard GSD, Cambridge (2020). Recent publications include PSYOP: An Anthology (2018, edited with Karen Archey), and Digital Tarkovsky (2018).

Interviews with the duo can be read here

Five degrees of longitude, with Lesia Prokopenko: https://easteast.world/en/posts/16

We are Reflections, with K Allado-McDowell: https://so-far.online/we-are-reflections-metahaven-and-the-charms-of-recursion

An excerpt from "Digital Tarkovsky" can be read here: https://strelkamag.com/en/article/digital-tarkovsky-metahaven-excerpt

Some screenshots from their recent film and installation work below

Post your theoretical and/or film questions here

• Can you explain the importance of simple geometric forms in your films?
• Your work often always departs from a dazzling set of references/ideas/philosophies, how do you manage to condense it into specificity (a weave or a script for instance)? What is the organizing principle if you have one?
• Top 10 films (since film questions) :)

People joining

• Geo
• Shannon
• Aitan
• Kotryna
• Adele
• Martin.F (XPUB)
• Sacha (coming in later)
• Yuqing
• Fileona (alumna)
• Anh (alumna)
• Marijke (MEIA)
• Dachen
• Luca