For the 56th edition of the steirischer herbst festival in Graz, artist Dani Gal takes on the notion of xenophobia, and deconstructs its connections to state-based violence and individual aggression. Two new films, titled Book of the Machines (2023) and Dark Continent (2023), were commissioned by the festival for “steirischer herbst ‘23: Humans and Demons.” In the films, literary works by Samuel Butler and Franz Fanon are explored and expanded on in order to problematize the ways in which fear of the other is normalized and explore its wide-spreading effects.