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The Conquest of Happiness: Drugs on Film
The Conquest of Happiness For nearly as long as there have been moving pictures, there have been drugs moving through their frames. The Conquest of Happiness, a 2005 pastiche by the German artist Oliver Pietsch, examines the patterns of drug use and representation on film. Compiling hundreds of clips over the course of two years, Pietsch “[aimed] to mirror the subject drug by aiming for a similar absorbing and lulling effect.” In an interview with Carroll/Fletcher earlier this month, Pietsch remarked of his piece that “the structure of repetition goes well with the principle of drugs.” While the obvious titles like Requiem for a Dream and Scarface make their due appearance, there are a few out of the box (Richard Nixon, tweaking) inclusions as well. Watch it over at Vimeo.
