LIFE WITHOUT DREAMS film by JESSICA BARDSLEY

The films of Jessica Bardsley are always shapeshifting. After all, her introduction to cinema was mediated by the “experimental bent” of video art and documentary filmmaking, and her practice molded by studying poetry and philosophy while listening to punk music in college. In Life Without Dreams, all of these influences congeal into an exploration of capitalism’s 24/7 demands, insomnia, and celestial bodies. Feminist philosopher Julia Kristeva describes depression as a “black sun” of unknown origin that emanates rays that compel those afflicted to silence and renunciation. Reflecting on this metaphor, Bardsley found herself wondering “whether we are adrift amongst the cosmos or on the inside of a psyche.” The thought-experiment informed Life Without Dreams’s self-inquiry into the mental and physical illnesses engendered by capitalism, as Bardsley cuts between intimate on-screen text detailing her struggles with sleeplessness and views of the cosmos’ infinitesimal grandeur and loneliness.