Inspired by Tom Gunning’s essay “Heard over the phone: The Lonely Villa and the de Lorde tradition of the terrors of technology” and created as a homage to Ken Jacobs’ nervous system performance, THE LONEDALE HYSTERIA is a live film performance that toys with the image of hysteria and technological frenzy as exemplified by D. W. Griffith’s THE LONEDALE OPERATOR (1911). Griffith’s story is re-made to create a contemporary metaphor of technological anxiety as experienced and shared by the turn of the 20th century and our technocratic present.

keywords: experimental cinema, live cinema, performance, Max/MSP/Jitter, found footage, appropriation, The Lonedale Operator (D.W. Griffith)