The film compendium to The Broad’s latest collection installation, Oracle Film Series, considers the individual in systems of global commerce, colonialism and digital networks. What becomes of traditions, religions, our oracles in the hyperreal inertia of our present day? The films assembled here celebrate the tenacity of the body and its ability to locate moments of sublimity in the face of global capitalism. From features shot in France, Japan, Djibouti, Thailand and the US, paired with short artist videos that render their message via lip-sync, video games, camp performance or productivity consultations, Oracle Film Series assembles masterworks in world cinema that shimmer with subversive glory, unleashing the self into jungles of digital or metaphysical design.
Bradford Nordeen is an independent curator and writer who lives in Los Angeles. The founder of Dirty Looks, a bicoastal platform for queer experimental film and video, and its site-specific, offshoot series Dirty Looks: On Location, Nordeen served as the Platinum Programmer for Outfest Los Angeles, 2013 - 2016. His writing has been published in Art in America, Afterimage, Lambda Literary, X-TRA, Little Joe, and BUTT Magazine. Nordeen is the author and co-editor of three Dirty Looks publications: Dirty Looks at MoMA, Check Your Vernacular and the Dirty Looks Volumes series, as well as the forthcoming survey, Analog Tendencies.