JESSE RODKIN
​
​
​
​
​
​
​​​
“Images are mediations between the world and human beings. Human beings
'ex-ist', i.e. the world is not immediately accessible to them and therefore images are needed to make it comprehensible. However, as soon as this happens, images come between the world and human beings. They are supposed to be maps but they turn into screens: Instead of representing the world, they obscure it until human beings' lives finally become a function of the images they create. Human beings cease to decode the images and instead project them, still encoded, into the world 'out there', which meanwhile itself becomes like an image - a context of scenes, of states of things. This reversal of the function of the image can be called 'idolatry'; we can observe the process at work in the present day: The technical images currently all around us are in the process of magically restructuring our 'reality' and turning it into a 'global image scenario'. Essentially this is a question of 'amnesia'. Human beings forget they created the images in order to orientate themselves in the world. Since they are no longer able to decode them, their lives become a function of their own images: Imagination has turned into hallucination.”
― Vilém Flusser, Towards a Philosophy of Photography, 1984
​
Currently in various stages of development on one short and two feature length documentaries, covering social injustices of the now and future; more on those coming later in 2025.​
Jesse Rodkin, MFA. NYC film director, editor, cinematographer, writer. Photographer. Developing a hybrid genre of experimental and narrative cinema while shaping new approaches towards methods of making in filmic structure and form. Creating short and feature length films in dialogue with its viewer, pursuing content that asks its participants to join in on the conversation, rather than consume.​​​ Work focalized on media addiction and screen obsession and their agenda laced messages infused into those endless data streams. Named one of 14 inaugural NeXtDoc Fellows as “a voice of the next generation of non-fiction storytellers,” his films have screened with festivals internationally and stateside serving to reaffirm a conversational approach to making, inviting viewer and media object to engage in a more active, inclusive dialogue.
​​