Molly Higgins

Inspired by the Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic; my moving image works have focussed on the internal power struggle of the self and how this results in a loss of agency and control. Through moving imagery I have been coming to terms with the multiple ‘dividual’ parts that constitute my being and my resounding issue of being outwardly thought of and treated as an individual. Visually, I have been creating works that express the fluidity of the ‘dividual’, with an express focus on the master-slave exchanges between the various parts. 

In terms of my relationship to the digital moving image; I have been largely influenced by the video and written essays of  Hito Steyerl. Especially her essay A Thing Like You and Me, in which she states that the image, ‘doesn’t represent reality. It is a fragment of the real world. A thing like you and me’.* Before encountering this essay, I had thought that the role of moving images was to capture the world within a set frame, immortalising it through repeatedly representing a moment or event that had happened.  However, now i have realised the moving image has a far greater role in which adds to the world and becomes a part of a greater system. Therefore,  I have recentered my focus around the capacity of the digital moving image to indoctrinate, control and shape reality when dispersed online, especially focusing on the extent that these moving images have to override moments, events and happenings that are in the ‘outside’, ‘natural’ world. Within this line of research, I have been especially influenced by works from the 60s and 70s, where the psychedelic revolution was taking place: with a large portion of youth culture revolving around social and spiritual connection. Through my own works I aim to replicate a digital psychedelic cult of the 2020s, which is purely online/ digital. 

To see my moving image works visit my Vimeo at: https://vimeo.com/user62352879

* Hito Steyerl, ‘ A Thing Like You and Me’, in The Wretched of the Screen’ (Berlin:Sternberg Press,2012)  p.52