Heart Whispers
A Film by Ash Verwiel
An alluring intrigue emanates from these digital cyberpunk spaces inside their melancholic aura. There is a certain beauty within the loneliness of the vivid crowded urban space. Everything seems to fade as time gets lost inside the tides of the never-ending nights. Philip K. Dick ponders in Galactic Pot-Healer, “No structure, even an artificial one, enjoys the process of entropy. It is the ultimate fate of everything, and everything resists it.” (pg.103) Layers of distant memories resonate from the brimming bars and shops; effulgent against the night. The only means of escape is to descend deeper into the labyrinths of concrete. The allure of these metropolis extends throughout the digital space like the endless sprawl of these cyberpunk cityscapes. The fading neon light flickers through the incessant rain... This visualization of these Cyberpunk territories is developed through the conception of digital art, games, and ambient soundtracks. Enthusiasts of these works have formed internet communities that are centered around creating and exploring these forlorn digital spaces.
During the early years of modern computing engineers, programmers and computer scientists were among the few groups of people able to access these newly minted machines. Due to their high costs and massive size large corporations, government intitutions and research universities were typically the only places where these machines were found. However, even during these early years of computer technology a numbr of motivated researchers saw the potential in creating games for these devices. While most of these games would not see a larger audience they would lay the foundation for future advancements in electronic gaming in the decades to come.
“Heart Whispers” is a reflective short documentary exploring my journey through adolescence, developing my own voice & struggling to belong as a trans man. A story about rebirth, connection to self and finding community. In a world where my future body once existed in my imagination only, I show how I manifested myself to life. I aimed to make this a non-medicalized trans story that goes against the mainstream trans narrative that always obsesses over the body and medical changes. Although these mainstream media representations may attempt to mediate, connect and gain proximity to trans folks, they end up fetishizing and oppressing the trans body. Instead, "Heart Whispers" reflects & connects the viewer to the trans experience by communicating inner transformation and the discovery that full disclosure of being oneself in proximity to a community offers a safe space in which to be seen. Surrender to your heart's voice because it's always whispering.
Ash Verwiel is a trans & queer filmmaker from the Netherlands, currently working from San Francisco where he is an audiovisual engineer and student at San Francisco State University. His often reflexive work focuses on documentary and experimental film that attempts to traverse obscurities of the human condition to reshape frameworks created by the mind.
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