Look On the Bright Side

Yuyan Wang / France & Italy / 2023 / International Premiere / 17 min

In an age of wire and string, futuristic visions anchor in lithic time. In the dark, people are driven to shine in the most spectacular ways. Light, emitted from our digital extensions, has roots traversing millions, even billions of years. Artificial light is never simply neutral or independent of the context it illuminates. Yuyan Wang’s sensory found footage montage, with contributions from an incredible number of sources, explores how light is a fundamental element in a spectacular age of control, consumption and entertainment. From enlightenment to distraction, and from the campfire to the numbing bluish glow of a smartphone. ‘Look on the Bright Side’ is a futuristic mood report from a new age of enlightenment that may have deeper historical roots than one might think.