Director: Lisa Birke

Film: Dawn of Melancholy: A Birthday Soliloquy

Bio: Dawn of Melancholy: A Birthday Soliloquy, ruminates on the passage of time, reproduction, and meaning making as the lines between recorded, enhanced, and artificial reality become blurred. The viewer is implicated in an existential crisis when they inadvertently release a digital copy of the artist from the confines of the video through augmented reality.

Lisa Birke is a Canadian artist whose work is the result of the collision of video, performance art, and expanded media. Absurd yet insightful performative acts become entangled in installations that trouble viewer expectations in the mixing of referents from art history, popular culture and the everyday. Recently, Birke has been exploring immersive approaches using special effects, AR, and 360 video. Her award-winning video work has seen more than 100 screenings and installations at film festivals, and in galleries/museums internationally, including Vancouver International Film Festival, Slamdance Film Festival, Florida Film Festival, International Short Film Week Regensburg, Torrance Art Museum, and the Remai Modern along with many others. Birke is Assistant Professor of Digital and Extended Media at the University of Saskatchewan.