12.08.2020
Lectures/Events

Sunset Kino: RIHACTION

Wed, 12 August 2020, 9pm

Neil Young, RIHACTION, 2019, 103 min
Curated by Sebastian Höglinger (AT) and Peter Schernhuber (AT).
Followed by Q&A with director Neil Young.

How do we (re)act when the camera’s on us? In RIHACTION, Neil Young invites us into the private spaces of 37 YouTubers each performing their own unique reaction to a single video: Tom Holland’s viral performance of Rihanna’s “Umbrella” on the American musical-reality competition show Lip Sync Battle.

Pulling directly from the internet’s content ether, Young aggregates a collage of YouTube videos, collating them in a hypnotic elucidation of online reaction culture. Young offers little instruction on how to process the collection of clips, but as they coalesce into something beyond their individual parts (and as the infectious melody of “Umbrella” coaxes its way comfortably into the brain) one begins to discern the film’s intentions: an interrogation of virality, performativity, reception, fandom, marketing and masculinity in 21st century digital media.