An expedition leaves Ushuaia for the Antarctic circle. Pierre Huyghe, along with six other artists, is brought aboard Jean-Louis Etienne's boat in search of an uncharted island inhabited by a strange creature. Imprisoned by ice floats, they come across an albino penguin that they capture with their recording station. Six months later, on the Wollman Ice Rink in New York's Central Park -- another sea of ice -- Joshua Cody conducts his orchestral score inspired by the expedition's topographical records.

The ‘Human Mask’ film is inspired by a real situation in Japan, in which a monkey – wearing the mask of a young woman – has been trained to work as a waitress. The film opens with footage of the deserted site of Fukushima in 2011, the camera functioning as a drone scaling the wreckage. This is followed by scenes of the monkey alone in her habitat, silhouetted against the empty, dark restaurant. In this dystopian setting, an animal acts out the human condition, trapped, endlessly repeating her unconscious role.