It’s complicated

Right after the New Year, the world begins to take the shape of a red heart. The com­mer­cial vision of love that impos­es itself every­where on Valen­tine’s Day seems to con­vince us that human rela­tion­ships are a sim­ple, straight­for­ward mat­ter — all fit­ting into one oblig­a­tory image. Mean­while… it’s complicated.

This evening at Hash­tag Lab we will look at love, rela­tion­ships, and bonds from many angles. There are as many visions of love as there are peo­ple in the world. Some­times, despite hav­ing a vision, one fails to find it — or it turns out to be so dif­fi­cult that life is eas­i­er with­out it. Some­times it is absent by choice. Often too, that vision changes over the years, just as love changes with­in a long-term rela­tion­ship. Ten­der­ness and rot — two forces that vie for dom­i­nance with­in it. Some­times ten­der­ness con­cedes defeat and love pass­es. And what if it was built on diver­gences and oppo­sites from the very begin­ning? Can it per­sist in the dif­fer­ences and fric­tions that remain an active force? 

In the dig­i­tal age, human rela­tion­ships — not only roman­tic ones — have under­gone changes that would have been unimag­in­able just a few decades ago. A long-dis­tance rela­tion­ship? In the past it was held togeth­er only by let­ters wait­ed on for weeks; lat­er, tele­phones appeared. Today, you can con­nect with some­one thou­sands of kilo­me­tres away in an instant and feel close. But you can also sit with some­one on the same sofa and be far apart. Nah aber fern, fern aber nah. 

Togeth­er with Che Buford, Sangjun Lee, Elia Per­inu, Hong San Hyung and Paweł Mali­nows­ki we will try to cap­ture the essence of what makes peo­ple want to be with one anoth­er. In all like­li­hood it will remain elu­sive. Unti­tled. Because it’s complicated. 

After the con­cert, we invite you to watch two short films from Stu­dio Munk — Aria Diva direct­ed by Agniesz­ka Smoczyńs­ka and Gorzko by Marcin Kluczykows­ki. Jan Topol­s­ki will intro­duce the theme and togeth­er we will exam­ine how threads of love and music inter­twine in top-shelf cinema.