In the film 'I Wan’na Be Like You', Lukács and Broersen focus on the Western image of the ‘jungle’. The wilderness is often seen as a Terra Nullius, supposedly unexplored land that served as an emblem of desire for colonial powers. The artists delve deeper into this wilderness as it was once confiscated and subsequently recreated in the most important Botanical Gardens in Europe, including Paris (Jardin des Plantes), London (Kew Gardens), Brussels (Meise Gardens) and Amsterdam (Hortus Botanicus).
The creation of the film 'I Wan’na Be Like You' began four years ago when Lukács and Broersen visited dozens of botanical gardens across Europe and took thousands of photographs there. They then digitally assembled these photographs through a complex process of photogrammetry, 3D moulding and modelling. In this way, Lukács and Broersen created a replica of these greenhouses, made up of the conquered jungle as it is preserved in botanical gardens across Europe. The camera takes the viewer through what at first appears to be untouched nature, a virtual construction of plants, tree trunks, vines, and among them, signs (in the classic style of botanical gardens) that neatly display the names of these ‘wild’ plants. We are not in nature, we are trapped in an artificial greenhouse where everything is documented, categorised, exported and exploited.
This virtual ruin serves as a backdrop for an avatar of a ghost, an apparition that is neither human nor animal. This otherworldly spirit is animated through motion capture with dancer Laura Moura Costa, performing a choreography by Andreas Hannes, echoing both contemporary dance and the transcendental, weightless language of romantic ballet. The avatar dances to a piece of music composed especially for the film, based on the song 'I Wan’na Be Like You' from Disney’s Jungle Book (1967).
The song is reinterpreted in two ways: as a tribute to the hybrid New Orleans jazz tradition and as an indictment of the underlying racism of Disney’s original. Musician David Lukács deconstructed
I Wan’na Be Like You into a polyphonic melody (a fugue) as a tribute to the classical influences in New Orleans Jazz. Jamal Bijnoe and Orlando Ceder, two members of the choir Black Harmony, interpreted and transformed the original song not only as an indictment of its colonial undertones, but also as a proud representation of the history of their ancestors. In their song Na Mi (Sranang for ‘I am’) they reincarnate the dead and celebrate the living.