A Flower of Forgetfulness — Kick the Machine

A large white fabric floats in the air, as if guided by a forever wind, inside the space of the Brigittines. Images are projected onto it, emerging and vanishing through folds and shadows, like a collective cloud of half-remembered dreams drifting over the audience. For this new performance, commissioned by the festival and one of the edition’s most anticipated projects, filmmaker Apichatpong Weerasethakul and his artistic collaborators present images of their diaries to weave a mesmerizing meditation on forgetting. The visual journey reflects on the genocides of recent years: these moments of erasure, these violent flowers of forgetfulness. A giant metal tower allows viewers to observe the space from multiple vantage points. It is at once reminiscent of a rocket launch and a platform for contemplating sunsets. From there, the visual landscape intersects with two other story lines: visitors climbing Sigiriya – an ancient rock in Sri Lanka, their footsteps echoing on metal stairs – and two figures communicating with each other across continents, hinting at the fragility of memory. By unifying all these stories, the artists conjure a mesmerizing experience between cinema and performance, an unforgettable moment about the possibility of forgetting, memory, distance, and continuity.

Cast Maiyatan Techaparn, Jan Valentin Sikon, Tilda Swinton, Jenjira Widner Pongpas, Sakda Kaewbuadee, Araya Rasdjarmrearnsook
Artists Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Rueangrith Suntisuk, Pornpan Arayaveerasid, Akritchalerm Kalayanamitr, Koichi Shimizu
Technical Assistant Piti Boonsom
Kinetic Engineer Laphonphat Doungploy
Video Diaries Apichatpong Weerasethakul
Additional Videos Chatchai Suban
Assistant Camera Phatsamon Kamnertsiri, Nutthaphong Niamnud
Production Manager Kamonpan Pakpised
Music Composers Ryuichi Sakamoto and Koichi Shimizu
Additional Wind Recordings Lasse Marhaug
Piano Performed by Yuni Mori
Piano Recorded by Gen Tanabe
Additional Music Composed by Wuttipong Leetrakul
Vocal by NOTEP
Archival Footage Library of Congress, films by Thomas A. Edison: Surf of Monterey (1897), Return of Lifeboat (1897), Panorama of Gorge Railroad (1900)
Thai Film Archive: The Ghost of Takhian (1940, Srikrung Sound Film), The Blood of a Farmer (1936, Srikrung Sound Film), Mora (1936, Sri Burapha Phapayon)
Technical Team Yorrick Detroy, Hugues Girad, Gleb Panteleeff, Léopold De Neve, Antoine Thonon
Les Brigittines Team Grégoire Larrouy, Aline Fernande, VDB Audio (Xavier), Vidi Square (Mathijs), Scaffolding 360 Events
Co-productions Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Berliner Festspiele, Tainan Arts Festival (Taiwan), Sharjah Art Foundation, Minato Arts Center m~m, with Kick the Machine Films, DuckUnit and Bangkok CityCity Gallery

Photographs by Apichatpong Weerasethakul and Rueangrith Suntisuk.

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