ECLIPSE
by Elinor Henry
This project explores the capacity for violent indifference towards the erasure of ‘othered bodies’; human and non-human, mythological and earthly, in folklore tales and in queer realities, and tells the tale of the radical subversion of the systems meant to annihilate them.
Film Logline: Under a far-right theocracy in future Ireland, robotic surveillance in disguise polices bodies deemed “deviant,” with public participation gamified through a platform by tech giant Animus. But when a new brief crosses a line, one designer embeds a secret rupture in the system—turning the state’s machines into an archive of forbidden stories and erased identities.
We are living in a world of social and ecological poly crisis, one where the pursuit of pleasure and commercial gain comes above the protection and care of our intertwined living ecosystems.
Bodies, human and beyond, become sites of exploitation and extraction. Their stories, their voices are silenced and erased through architectures of control. This research-led speculative project questions the spatial politics of power, control and erasure of ‘othered’ histories and stories. Connecting to family heritage, Elinor explores Ireland, the River Shannon and associated ancient mythologies in contrast with tech ethics and religion. She looks at the future of biotech surveillance around sites of water deities, queer ecology and beyond. Elinor juxtaposes queer feminist concerns with the environmental crisis. Drawing on Audre Lorde’s ‘no hierarchy of oppressions’, she addresses future suffering as rooted in the same power systems of violence and oppression.