This film essay by Verheijden is a visual exploration that builds upon the data that marketers use to influence our desire. Can we be free when marketers know everything about us, by tracking metadata from the apps, social media and websites we use? The consumer’s desire has turned into readable, monetizable data and seems to be the only thing that matters. But if desire is not one’s own anymore, what is left of one’s identity?

Land of Desire questions today's increasingly consumerist society and our desire-driven media landscape through the use of found footage from contemporary media and pop culture such as music video's and commercials. With a heavy montage in sound and image Verheijden compresses together the images that we encounter on a daily ba…is, and through the exaggeration becoming a perverted experience. In this utopia/dystopia the aesthetics of heaven and hell are not that different, since they all come from the same desire-producing machine that is called marketing.

The dreamy, ambient soundtrack weaves the plentiful stream of images together. In different voice-overs we hear private contemplations. This work is the successor to the short film All the World's A Stage - Ways of Seeing 2013 (2013) that evolves around the text Ways of Seeing by John Berger and the visual input our contemporary society is overwhelmed with. Read more...