Description

First came Looking for Alfred, a 2005 video installation unfolding Grimonprez’ search for the ultimate Hitchcock impersonator. The project later evolved into a book, where Jorge Luis Borges’ short story “Veinticinco de agosto, 1983”, triggers a collective discussion about doubles and falsehood. The publication included essays by the likes of Slavoj Žižek and Tom McCarthy, who would eventually co-write the script for the long feature Double Take. As in dial H-I-S-T-O-R-Y, here Grimonprez explores the political effects of the mediatization of violence and fear, specifically in the Cold War context. In the meantime, we follow an apparently inoffensive fictional meeting between Hitchcock and an older self. However, the narrator warns us: “If you meet your double, you should kill him”.