Choosing our own path is a complex endeavour.

From ideological to economic, political, and cultural influences, various factors define the boundaries of our freedom (of choice). This underscores the nuanced nature of freedom, existing on a spectrum of degrees rather than as a binary concept.

Understanding the interplay of various factors within the social milieu becomes essential in deciphering the conditioning of our choices.

One of the basic ways to understand our conditioning is to look at social norms and taboos that limit ‘freedoms of expression,’ going as far as denying the right of existence of the ‘other’. Be it in Paul B. Preciado’s ORLANDO. MY POLITICAL BIOGRAPHY (which takes a playful, conceptual look at gender plurality and its victory over the barriers of system(ic) structures) or Elvis Ngaibino Sabin’s THE BURDEN (an unflinching look at the contradictory ideology of communal support as conditioned by religious dogma).

Economic structures also pose a form of conditioning, rewiring us to maximise the bottom-line of profit to the detriment of both man and nature. Goran Dević’s WHAT’S TO BE DONE tells the story of syndicate activist Željko Starčević’ decade-long fight against the state-sanctioned bankruptcy of Croatia’s 120-year-old Gredelj train factory.

This rampant cannibalism of capitalism is further explored in Pedro de Filippis’ REJEITO, a similar “David vs Goliath” battle of Brazil’s rural communities fighting against the negligence and mining exploitation of the Vale company, whose activities threaten to repeat one of the country’s largest environmental disasters.

The interrogation of the governing structures of power, law & justice, is explored in both THEATRE OF VIOLENCE and INCIDENT. In the former, Emil Langballe and Lukasz Konopa question the complexity of defining justice within the limitations of the justice system as former Ugandan child soldier Dominic Ongwen is put on trial for crimes against humanity. In the latter, over the course of thirty minutes, Bill Morrison synchronises the multiple recordings (surveillance cameras, dashboard cameras and police body cams) that witnessed the fatal shooting of Harith Augustus by the Chicago police. INCIDENT’s forensic reconstruction of this event shows how images can be used as tools to construct or deconstruct narratives.

Shifting the discourse to cyberspace, NOTES FROM EREMOCENE and HUMAN NOT HUMAN utilize the structure of its digital Agora as a means of inquiry about human civilization. If Natan Castay uses Amazon’s global network to dig out an endearing portrait of human connection from within its digital click-workers, its AI-breeding-ground is projected into its dystopian future by Viera Čákanyová where AI and post-human consciousnesses ponder over history, civilization and their (d)evolution.

(Anca Păunescu, Andrei Tănăsescu)