Asher Penn

Born from the internet, the phrase "TFW No GF" was originally used online to describe a lack of romantic companionship. Since then, it has evolved to symbolize a greater state of existence defined by isolation, rejection and alienation. The meme's protagonist, "WOJAK," has become the mascot to a vast online community consisting of self-described "hyper-anonymous twenty somethings" and "guys who slipped between the cracks." TFW No GF asks: How has the zeitgeist come to bear down on a generation alienated by the 'real world'? Meet the lost boys who came of age on the internet- places like 4chan and Twitter, where they find camaraderie in despair.

Closing time.

Daisy Park's boyfriend Raul has 5 months left when he gets new cell mate Ian. They become friends and when Ian is released before Raul with no home, he goes to stay with Daisy. An affair sparks, revenge is inevitable.

Trecartin's extraordinary digital manipulations reach a new level as he speculates in vivid animation about reproduction, sexuality, and contemporary moralities. Collapsing footage appropriated from television, the Internet, and pop culture, Trecartin and his elaborately costumed collaborators manufacture an alien yet familiar reality. Inside this startling new video world, technophile gods wearing acid-washed denim argue about the future of gender and produce cryptic TV commercials. In a surreal backyard town meeting, characters deliver disjointed polemics assembled from clashing phrases that could have originated in ad campaigns, instant messaging conversations, or twisted episodes of syndicated science fiction. Constructed from the raw material of disposable media clichés and fads, Trecartin's narrative leaves us to answer the riddles he poses.

In the Netherlands, the ocean is rising. A reclusive engineer has arrived in Rotterdam, promising to invent a new system of dikes and dams, using a computer that harnesses the power of dreams. A pair of twins are selected for the study - gabber kids, from the local hardcore scene. As the duo get sucked deeper into a digital dream world, they begin to wonder if the inventor's true goal isn't to protect Rotterdam at all.

Trecartin crafts a fantastical narrative about a girl whose obsessive personal utopia is disrupted. Trecartin's collaborator, Lizzie Fitch, plays a girl obsessed with Valentine's Day. Everything in her hyperactive, sped-up world revolves around Valentine's Day: red, white, and pink love-themed decorations cover every surface; heart shapes abound; Valentine's Day treats are everywhere. Her private festivities suddenly go awry as a hoard of Christmas-themed intruders appear and take her hostage in her own apartment. Gagged and bound, she is forced to watch while her ecstatic but sinister captors stage a frenzied Christmas intervention.

A Family Finds Entertainment chronicles the story of mixed up teenager Skippy and his adventures in ‘coming out’. In this over the top celebration of queerness, Trecartin’s film mines the bizarre and endearing in an unabashed pastiche of ‘bad tv’ tropes. Cheesy video special effects, dress-up chess costumes, desperate scripts, and ‘after school special’ melodrama combine in the fluency of youth-culture lingo, reflecting a generation both damaged and affirmed by media consumption.

Dr Gabor Maté has become one of the world’s most influential thinkers about addiction, trauma and childhood development on the back of books like In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, The Myth of Normal and When the Body Says No. He’s pioneered the idea of Compassionate Inquiry as a therapeutic approach, and worked for over a decade on Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside.