IT ’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS, a 30-minute-long CGI film, is the second part of an imaginary video game which follows an ambiguous “hero” undergoing numerous metamorphoses. The film challenges the amped-up constructed masculinity that video game avatars embody as well as the associated idealistic connotations of progress, growth, and transformation. Rather than just embracing the potential of computer-animated worlds, the film inverts their “logic” and questions their highly politicized and constructed nature. 

External worlds merge with internal ones, the body’s selfhood untangles from surface, and emotions flood and disintegrate. Dream eroticism is blended with body horror, and scenes of destruction and decay juxtapose against scenes of resilience and rebirth. Bassam builds a world in which selfhood and queer possibility intersect, where multiple “glitches” occur within the body and gender, and binaries begin to break down. These glitches, or forms of discontent and unraveling, push and challenge preconceived narratives and habitual perceptions of masculinity, taking viewers through a spellbinding journey of metamorphosis and fluidity. 

Bassam’s hyper-synthetic aesthetic is at times seductive but often disconcerting and eerie, creating unique worlds of subtle storytelling full of visual and conceptual juxtapositions. Across the film, the viewer experiences scenes of destruction and decay against scenes of resilience and rebirth. These juxtapositions act as a platform to examine themes of identity, social binaries, and norms.  

IT ’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS is part two of a series of two films—part one being I AM ERROR.

Links: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po7Zr3v1ZkI

Written, directed and animated by Bassam Issa

Commissioned by the Douglas Hyde Gallery

Supported by the Arts Council of Ireland

Bassam Issa (IE) works across digital animation, painting, sculpture and textiles creating visions of resistance, transformation, and queer possibility. Recent solo exhibitions include: IT ’S DANGEROUS TO GO ALONE! TAKE THIS at The Douglas Hyde Gallery, Dublin (2022), I AM ERROR at Gasworks, London (2021), and De La Warr Pavilion, Sussex (2022). Recent group exhibitions include Queer Embodiment and Social Fabric at the Irish Museum of Modern Art (2021-2022), LIAF Biennale, Lofoten, Norway (2022) and Transmediale, Berlin (2021). Recent screenings include the Barbican, London (2022), EX-IS, South Korea (2021), and Jeu de Paume, Paris (2021).