Morphē (2012)
Morphē is a short film conceived by multidisciplinary artist Lucy McRae in collaboration with Australian skincare brand Aesop. It playfully presages a new juncture for science and beauty, transforming an old Amsterdam church into a meticulously ordered space that references Aesop’s own laboratory. Here, a painstaking Scientist employs an assortment of gels, liquids, and weird contraptions to minister arcane beauty treatments to a sleeping Muse. The skin and hair play key roles for the female specimen fortunate enough to be on the receiving end of a new kind of super-sensory beauty treatment. McRae describes her film inspired chiefly by nineteenth-century scientist and philosopher Hermann von Helmholtz, and his revolutionary research on human perception: ‘Everything’, wrote Helmholtz, ‘is an event on the skin’. ‘I wanted to suggest a journey inside a world beyond skin care, one that involves farther realms of perception within the sensory landscape of the human body.'
Director: Lucy McRae
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Cara To as Muse |
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Victor Helmich as Scientist |
| Art | Maaike Fransen | Assistant Art Director |
| Production | Holly Krueger | Producer |
| Sound | Eduardo Noya Schreus | Music |
| Production | Jack Yoern | Production Assistant |
| Art | Maya LaCroix | Art Department Assistant |
| Art | Frank Verkade | Art Department Assistant |
| Camera | Hessel Waalewijn | Director of Photography |
| Art | Barnaby Monk | Production Design |
| Editing | Ine van den Elsen | Editor |
| Editing | Dan Honey | Project Manager |
| Directing | Lucy McRae | Director |
| Costume & Make-Up | Janneke Verhoeven | Costume Designer |
| Production | Holger Gons | Production Assistant |
| Lighting | Owen Kuipers | Lighting Design |
| Art | James Teng | Art Department Assistant |
| Production | Sanne van Wersch | Casting |
| Art | Laetitia Migliore | First Assistant Art Direction |