Happiness is always, incomplete
March 20 is International Day of Happiness. The world has also just crossed the one year anniversary of the COVID-19 pandemic when international borders closed, almost everything shut down everywhere and we had to stay home. It is difficult to find happiness during a pandemic, but one is thankful for being safe and healthy, close to family, and being in Dubai is a lot better than being in many other countries at this time.
UAE celebrating the day of happiness reminded me of this 3 minute silent film from 2008 by artist and filmmaker Ben Russell. It’s called Trypps #5 (Dubai), and this is how he describes it:
APP APPAP APP APAPPAP APP APP APP APAPPAPAPPAP APPAPAPP
A short treatise on the semiotics of capital, happiness, and phenomenology under the flickering neon of global capitalism.
The title of the blogpost “Happiness is always, incomplete” perfectly encapsulates my current state of mind. It comes from this short review by Genevie Yu for Reverse Shot about the film:
"A radically restricted camera was similarly fixed on half of a neon sign in Ben Russell's Trypps #5 (Dubai) (2008), which displayed the letters "APP" and only half of a "Y" in an erratic, discontinuous pulse. If the mention of Dubai conjures a cosmopolitan skyline, Russell renounces the possibility of seeing even a single street. As Mark McElhatten writes in the program notes, "Happiness is always, incomplete," and here, in a critique that Debord may have particularly appreciated, it's a brightly colored sign for a shop that promises everything but sells nothing."