What’s more compelling than a pearl-clutching (literally, not in a Mary Whitehouse way) merman-like creature in a little red crown? Not a lot, to be honest. This hairy fellow is part of the cast of Esther Teichmann and Monster Chetwynd’s new collaborative film Phantasie Fotostudio II, which takes in influences from such multifarious sources as Walter Benjamin’s essay Art in the Age of Mechanical Reproduction, Brooke Shields in Blue Lagoon, David Lynch, and Nicholas Roeg’s Walkabout. The film, which will be on show from 16 February to 23 May at John Hansard Gallery in Southampton, is described as “a Frankenstein of moments in modern cinema and culture” and a “Warholesque film montage of extended portraits” united by the repeated motif of a crying figure.
