Subliminal Lullabies for a Postmodern Inheritance

As younger generations enter the labour market to build upon dreams inherited from the past, we start to confront the limits that centuries of unchecked acceleration and colonial legacy have brought us to. In a time defined by the diffuse, fragmentary and multi-dimensional fallout of modernity (Herwitz & Daniel, Encyclopedia of Aesthetics: Postmodernism, 2008), where and when can we find rest? What do we still dare to desire for a better future for ourselves and those who will come after us? And what do we need to mourn in order to move on from the crushed remnants of expectations and utopias past?

With an increasing sense of loss, we have ushered in an age of digital snake oil sales tactics and self-help techno-spirituality. Subliminal sound bites proliferate the underground of social media, selling irresistibility, success and security to the vulnerable in exchange for ad revenue. Blending sound and text with visuals that transport the mishmash of old-new-secular-spiritual-here-there, “Subliminal Lullabies”, borrows from the aesthetics of these subliminals and manifest-affirmations, remixing interviews with individuals coming to terms with the state of the present and anxiety about the future into a lullaby-lament to soothe the nervous system without turning away.

Subliminal Lullabies has been screened at the following festivals:

Public Shorts, Berlin, 2026

Sleepy Eyes Film Festival, The Hague, 2026

Fluctoplasma: Visions Beyond the West, Hamburg, 2025

Belgrade Youth Biennial: Oases, Belgrade, 2025

Photos taken in situ by Alex Schröder for the Sleepy Eyes film festival, The Hague, 2026