Hámos crafts an allegory of production and desire in post-industrial German society, presented in the guise of a Wagnerian music video. Hámos' German laborer is transported through disjointed urban and suburban landscapes, achieving an ironic heroicism at the nexus of myth and reality. Juxtaposed with Wagner's operatic score, Hámos' image collage of labor, sex and architecture takes on a surreal lyricism, as the city becomes a living organism, the worker a cultural symbol.
Luck Smith was produced as part of the international Time Code project, in which artists were commissioned to capture the spirit, reality and "pulse" of a specific place without dialogue or commentary.
With: Izzettin Guetzel, Sigmar Kreie, Nila Kim. Producer: Carl Ludwig Rettinger. Photography: Gusztav Hamos, Martin Kukla. Lighting: Till Meier. Sound: Ed Cantu. Editor: Tom Lino. From Time Code, a co-production of the CAT Fund; Channel 4; INA; ZDF; Agent Orange; WGBH.