{"product_id":"pierre-huyghe-untitled-human-mask-9781846382130","title":"Pierre Huyghe: Untitled (Human Mask)","description":"\u003cb\u003eAn examination of Pierre Huyghe's post-apocalyptic \u003ci\u003eUntitled (Human Mask)\u003c\/i\u003e, which asks whether our human future may be one of remnants and mimicry.\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003ePierre Huyghe's 2014 film \u003ci\u003eUntitled (Human Mask)\u003c\/i\u003e combines images of a post-apocalyptic world (actual footage of deserted streets close to the Fukushima Daiichi nuclear disaster of March 2011) with a haunting scene of a monkey working in an empty restaurant wearing a human mask and a wig. She's a girl! The flat, emotionless almost automaton state of the mask and the artificial glossy hair topped even with a child's bow, suggests that she, the monkey, might be a character from Japanese Noh theatre. But there's no music. Instead Huyghe's film evinces the terrifying possibility that our own, human, future might just be one of remnants and mimicry; that the deserted streets of Fukushima and the monkey's recognizable, alienating chimeric performance is all that might survive us. Untitled (Human Mask) presents a pluperfect world with extinction the endgame for a civilization that cared little for the present, dreaming only of a future that inevitably and necessarily could not include it.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003e\u003ci\u003eLewis, Mark:\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e - Mark Lewis is the series editor of the Afterall Books One Work series and professor of fine art at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London, where he co-founded Afterall in 1998.","brand":"Afterall Books","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50434673869074,"sku":"9781846382130","price":14.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_fce97611-f04f-4eda-bbed-7b752cbbcb57.jpg?v=1729606910","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/pierre-huyghe-untitled-human-mask-9781846382130","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}