for here am i sitting in a tin can far above the world is an experimental double-screen film that addresses the links between crypto culture and cryogenics as two speculative technologies for which the future becomes an economic resource to be exploited. Through a collage of YouTube videos, archival images and 3D animations, for here am i sitting in a tin can far above the world explores the links between financial speculation, speculative science-fiction and the prediction and governance of the future.

Examining the fantasies conveyed by crypto-currencies, the narrative is carried by the enveloping text of an invisible narrator recounting her intimate dreams and fears. Accompanying us on a dreamlike, poetic, historical and futuristic audiovisual journey, she evokes the figure of the American extropian and cypherpunk Hal Finney, a crucial figure in the history of Bitcoin but also a cryogenic patient since 2014.

The film also explores the sensation of temporary floating: through the figure of “suspended animation”, it evokes a historical epoch marked by a high degree of unpredictability and uncertainty, due to the acceleration and disruption of new technologies, as well as to the multiple consequences of the Anthropocene. The idea of temporary suspension is questioned through the dichotomy “suspension-free fall”: Is humanity floating in uncertainty, or are we rather in free fall? How can we differentiate between the two, given the limits of human perception and knowledge?

Gala Hernández López is an artist filmmaker and researcher. Her interdisciplinary practice combines film production with video installations, performances and publications. More specifically, her work looks at new modes of subjectivation as produced by computational capitalism. From an ecofeminist and critical lens, she examines imaginaries circulating in virtual communities, desires and futurities conveyed by disruptive technologies, and new reactionary tech utopias as shared fictions forming our collective unconscious. Her works are research-based, combining materialist analysis with poetry, intimacy and dreams with the aim of dissecting human fantasies of limitless techno-scientific control over reality.

Among others, her work has been shown at Berlinale, DOK Leipzig, Raindance, IndieLisboa, transmediale, Centre Wallonie Bruxelles, iMAL, York Art Gallery and the Salon de Montrouge. She is a PhD candidate at the University Paris 8, where she is finishing a research-creation project on screen capture and where she has taught for 3 years.

In 2023-2024, she was an artist in residence at the French Academy in Spain – Casa de Velázquez, she will be an artist in residence at Palais de Tokyo and teach at BAU College of Arts and Design Barcelona in the fall 2024. Gala Hernández López co-directs the research and creation collective After Social Networks (www.after-social-networks.com).

Artist's website: www.galahernandez.com

Written, directed and edited by Gala Hernández López
Production: Gala Hernández López / After Social Networks and Quentin Brayer / Don Quichotte Films
Voice over: Olivia Delcán and Joseph Grossi
3D animation: Xinxin Kong
Sound design: Mathias Arrignon
Color grading: Juan José González
Music: Diego Delgado
Graphic design poster: Esteve Padilla (131gd)
Project supported by Salon de Montrouge

AWARDS

iMAL Award, Biennale Nova XX
Finalist of the Miquel Casablancas Award – Sant Andreu Contemporani 2024
Special Mention of the Jury – Alterna Film Festival
Best International Short Film Award – Leiden Shorts 2024
Best Film award / Short documentary section – Lucania Film Festival 2024