Batman v Superman: The End of History is an endless linear narrative film that uses the five DC comics films made after Fukuyama’s end of history and the end of history’s potential end, 9-11, as a window into the psyche of post-modern neo-liberal capitalist society. The titanic caped crusaders, the cast of characters around them, their trials, and their triumphs manifest as the dreams of capital itself, through which we can determine and map this society’s convictions, ideations, struggles and anxieties. Using a max patch created by Fred Wolflink, BvS:tEoH pulls clips at random from these DC comics films and strings them together in what is both an endless trailer and an endless film. The pounding soundtrack strings the disparate images together, creating a sense of anxiety, anticipation, and comedically futile repetition.
These two videos are in essence the trailers for that eventual endless film. Each draws from a single scene from Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice. In the first, Batman, travels endlessly through a 9-11-esque cityscape trying to save the populace, as Superman battles the alien ‘other’, General Zod, in the sky. In the second Superman intervenes to stop Batman’s explosive vigilante raid. Both trap these liberal archetypes in an unceasing loop, as they move at breakneck speed towards the same conflicts and situations they were in before.
The goal of the project is to eventually have clips from all five films as well as expand the sound design, generating music through a similar process and incorporating dialogue by isolating it from the existing soundtrack embed in the film, with the hope of actually screening the film both online and away from keyboard.