One of the standout videos of Visions of 2034, a new audio-visual exhibition from film-maker Romain Gavras and musician Benoit Heitz (AKA Surkin), is a blackly comic twist on conspiracy theory culture. In God Hates Space, some young people have defected to the woods somewhere in middle America due to their fringe beliefs, chiefly the idea that the Earth is actually hollow: trenchant stuff in an age when twentysomethings are becoming off-grid libertarian homesteaders, and popular influencers claim that Kendrick Lamar sent “demons through the TV screen” during his Super Bowl half-time performance.
But here’s the rub: God Hates Space, with its creepy-crazy images of fascism and crackpot conspiracy, was made more than six years ago in Ukraine, before the war. Its aesthetic – which Surkin describes as a combination of “confederate” and “Monster energy drink” – is prescient, not referential. “We shoot these videos and sometimes it takes a while for them to get released,” Surkin says. “The future is catching up with us. It gets dumber way quicker than before!”
