City Gallery

Past exhibition

Norman Leto: Sailor

6 September–30 November 2014

Norman Leto’s feature-length film Sailor (2010) is a portrait of an egotistical, misanthropic, politically-incorrect academic. Played by the Polish director himself, he presents a series of ‘lectures’ on neurological, philosophical, sociological, and anthropological questions, illustrated with computer-generated models. The first lecture is titled ‘The Brain of a Genius vs. that of an Idiot: Morphological Differences in Anatomy’. Sliding between the microcosmic (the structure of the mind) and the macrocosmic (the social and political) via the personal (his failing relationship with his submissive girlfriend, Nel), our protagonist rationalises his contempt for others. Grounded in genetics and neuroscience, his explanations sometimes seem almost plausible.