The Hangman at Home | We Are at Home

Multi Media project

“What does the hangman think about when he goes home at night from work?”

Inspired by the 1922 Carl Sandburg poem of the same title, acclaimed artists and filmmakers Michelle and Uri Kranot have created a multi-media project, that has three distinct and singular outputs: Exploring themes of acknowledgement and participation across mediums.

• The Hangman at Home – an animated short film (world premiere at the Krakow Film Festival – 2021)
• The Hangman at Home – VR – a single-user immersive experience (world premiere at the Venice Biennale – 2020)
• We Are at Home – a multi-user VR performance / installation (world premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival – 2021)

About

With their latest project, Michelle and Uri Kranot continue to explore the frontiers of immersive art and moving images, using multi-platform storytelling to create interactive worlds.

Both The Hangman at Home – VR single-user immersive experience and the We Are at Home multi-user VR installation present a captivating, poetic habitat that transcends the medium and prompts users to question the consequences of our actions and inaction. The experience expands on the notion of witnessing and observation, by going further to ask about implication and responsibility. It is a beautiful, delicate, and contemporary call for awakening.

The animation is hand-painted frame-by-frame with acrylic, a technique that allows for a rich though subtle examination of characters, gestures, and behaviours. The series of “living paintings” shines a light on private, domestic spaces, which are positioned within a clever, fragmented narrative.

Though all the components of this multi-media project deal with the theme of acknowledgement; the two VR experiences are separate and independent from The Hangman at Home animated short. They are an interactive call for participation and discovery, and a non-linear journey through changing environments. When offered as an immersive scenography and installation for a group of participants, the project expands to become an event ­– the We Are at Home multi-user VR installation, which allows audience members to meet both in VR and outside it, and to engage with multiple layers of narrative and striking imagery.

English Press kit
French Press kit