Shûsaku Arakawa

Life Extended continues Bigert & Bergström’s exploration of the human endeavor to control life and death. In the film, we meet the gerontologist who believes we will be immortal within a near future, the architects who constructs spaces to slow down the aging process, the monk who runs for 1,000 days in order to strengthen his spirit for its immortal journey, the street kids who lives in the moment, and many more. “Today aging is subject to control,” as one biochemist puts it. And the speed with which this biotechnological development is moving indicates that coming generations will live very long lives. Opposing the static image of the stairway of life, the film is constructed as a relay race where people move towards the viewer. Initiated as a work of art, the film envisions a contemporary memento mori for death itself, when death has become nothing but a memory.

An interview with artist Shūsaku Arakawa.

The mental crisis of an architect whose reflections on his commission to build a prison lead to the realization that the modern Western world is a single prison.

Arakawa has thrown big ripples all over the world with strange works such as the theme park "Site of Reversible Destiny Yoro", the house for not dying "Mitaka Tenmei Reversible House", and the huge cylindrical building "Nagi Ryuanji". Shusaku died suddenly in New York on May 19, 2010 at 0:35 am. Arakawa talks about the "Mitaka Tenmei Reversible House" he built during his lifetime. "Living here brings out the potential of the body and humans will not die."

Experimental documentary film, set in the then-present day, about an impoverished, lost boy, living alone in the Bowery.

Experimental documentary film, set in the then-present day, about an impoverished, lost boy, living alone in the Bowery.

Why Not is hypnotic, compulsive and claustrophobic. It is bathed in a cold, pervasive eroticism, which, oblique and displaced at first, finally becomes explicit in one of the most bizarre masturbation sequences ever filmed. For almost two hours, we observe a young, strikingly pretty girl, nude most of the time and alone in an apartment, engaged in a sonambulistic and sensuous attempt at coming to terms with herself.

Why Not is hypnotic, compulsive and claustrophobic. It is bathed in a cold, pervasive eroticism, which, oblique and displaced at first, finally becomes explicit in one of the most bizarre masturbation sequences ever filmed. For almost two hours, we observe a young, strikingly pretty girl, nude most of the time and alone in an apartment, engaged in a sonambulistic and sensuous attempt at coming to terms with herself.