by David Musgrave with Peter Hallward
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 Professor Peter Hallward, a philosopher whose work focuses on political will, to discuss the film’s varied themes.