Wer bin ich und wenn ja, wie viele ? (PART I : Auf der Suche)

2021, experimental film, 11:16 minutes
 

In search of identity, I pack my backpack with a smartphone, headphones, and a charger. Notebooks and maps have been replaced by screens and algorithms. The quest is no longer driven by existential curiosity, but by curation—by how I look, how I sound, how I appear. The question isn't who am I? but how do I present myself? The focus on surface has shifted the lens inward, placing me at the center of an endless scroll: Me, myself, and I.

I just want to have fun without considering the consequences. I move through streets, across cities, into landscapes, always performing, always aware. I am the protagonist in a film shot on a front-facing camera—intimate, immediate, endlessly rewatchable. As I capture the moment, the moment captures me. I get lost in the glow of my own reflection, seduced by the replay. Somehow, these clips, these digital fragments, feel more vivid than the actual experience. They become the memory.

But in a world where experience is filtered, edited, and uploaded, what truly remains? When the self is mediated through stories, posts, and likes, does it still exist beyond the screen? Is there life beyond the archive, beyond the branding of personality? Can we still access something raw, something shared, something real—something not made for the feed?

And maybe more importantly: how do we learn to connect again, not just to each other, but to the parts of ourselves that aren’t optimized for visibility? In the age of digital identity, can we still feel without performing it?