Public Knowledge: The Sad Life and Happy Death of Paper Napkin Holder Bear   - Camden Art Centre

by David Musgrave with John Douglas Millar

Camden Art Centre is pleased to premiere The Sad Life and Happy Death of Paper Napkin Holder Bear, a short film about a disposable intelligent object. Like Franz Kafka’s Odradek and Byron the Bulb in Thomas Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, the titular character possesses profound awareness but limited agency. Using a range of animation methods, from hand-drawn to AI-generated, artist and novelist David Musgrave explores our emotional and ethical connections with animals, people and objects. After the screening, Musgrave will be in conversation with John Douglas Millar.
The Artists

The Artists

David Musgrave is an artist who lives and works in London. His novel Lambda was published by Europa Editions in 2022.

John Douglas Millar is a writer who lives and works in London. He is currently working on a biography of the photographer Peter Hujar (Liveright/WW Norton US and Fitzcarraldo Editions UK). His book of literary essays Brutalist Readings was published by Sternberg Press (Berlin) in 2016.