DUALISMS AND THE PARADOX: THE ABSURD STRUGGLE fashion video
Role: Director, Cinematography & Editing | Fashion Designers: Tanya Gupta, Madeline Sery, Jihan Kikhia | Date: 2015
Dualisms and the Paradox: The Absurdist Struggle is a short film and fashion music video based on the Absurdist writings of Albert Camus and set to the song Firing Neurons by The Circumstances.
We filmed and edited this video to accompany a fashion collection that embodies the internal and external struggles Camus discusses in his writings.
“I said that the world is Absurd, but I was too hasty. This world in itself is not reasonable, that is all that can be said. But what is Absurd is the confrontation of this irrational and the wild longing for clarity whose call echoes in the human heart.”
- Albert Camus, from the Myth of Sisyphus
There is a dualism and a paradox in the human search for meaning, described by Camus as the Absurd struggle of mankind. Dualisms such as happiness and sadness; dark and light; life and death; can be lived with and are all exemplified in the city. But living with the paradox of valuing our lives in spite of our certain death and the meaninglessness of the universe is not possible. When facing the absurd directly, the conflict between what we want from the universe and what we ultimately find intensifies the chaos and blurs the lines between our inner self and our outer identity.