Cyprien Gaillard’s Nightlife: a seductive fever dream of race and revolution

Still from Cyprien Gaillard’s Nightlife. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist

Boom!

This 3D film is a fever dream of race and revolution. Set to Alton Ellis’s reggae refrain “I was born a loser”, it begins with Rodin’s Thinker, projected in a void. But its feet are mangled, blown off by Black Power supporters the Weather Underground, believed to have dynamited this particular cast in Cleveland, 1970.

Natural history

The scene shifts to LA where Hollywood junipers wave their shaggy limbs in slow motion against the nocturnal city lights. The dense, rippling foliage resembles aliens or billowing smoke.

Still from Nightlife. Photograph: Courtesy of the artist

Sparks fly

Next, it’s fireworks in the night sky above the stadium used for Berlin’s 1936 Olympics. And, finally, another tree, a tangled German oak.

Remix

Gaillard’s films seduce with intense mood while trailing intricate backstories. Here, the images refer to cultural narratives rewritten by rebels and underdogs. The trees are unwanted east Asian invaders; the stadium not the intended site of Nazi supremacy but where the black American athlete Jesse Owens scored four gold medals. The song was reimagined, too, recorded as I Was Born A Winner in 1971.

Part of The Infinite Mix, The Store, WC2, to 4 Dec