What is real? Image filters, algorithms and AI are creating a bubble, which blurs what is left outside. Blinded by the promises of an perfect life, we are pulled into the accelerating flow of constant technological innovations, drifting into an unknown future. But what is hiding beneath the shiny surface? Tensions rise between commerce and creativity, survival and self-optimization, resistance and exploitation. Welcome to the brave new world.
No technology has caused as much of a stir in recent years as artificial intelligence. However, the understanding of what AI is depends on the perspective of the observer. A short film attempts to describe a realistic perspective on this phenomenon. Therefore, the film's presentation refers to the actual form of AI: individual lines of code.
… >>>Commercially operated AI image generators reveal their hidden logic in the shimmering choreography of loading bars, confirmation windows, and beauty filters. Between gamification and advertising banners, the camera switches between the feverishly typed prompts of an invisible user and the AI-generated portraits. Algorithmic promise and lived uncertainty of the digital black box. A field of tension between the visible and the hidden, between conformity and difference, in which creativity must be renegotiated.
… >>>Someone lies in bed staring at the ceiling—at a framed picture of a horse that proclaims with stoic confidence: “You can do anything.” Becoming an adult for the first time. Is this what it feels like? The room remains motionless, while a voiceover unfolds a stream of thoughts. Fragmented observations and reflections on life, dreams, and resistance. The daily struggle for survival in a fragile world between longing and powerlessness, stagnation and movement.
… >>>A self-portrait of an Asian living in Germany. Die Zauberflöte (The Magic Flute), with rewritten lyrics in the style of a German tongue twister, “Zungenbrecher”.
… >>>Waking up, cigarettes on the balcony. Two figures smoking together. Conversations about nothing while, in the distance, the world is falling apart. What do they see?
… >>>At 23, Stepan Timoshin is already at the top of his game. The tabloids have dubbed the influencer and TikToker the “sneaker millionaire.” In early 2024, he announces that he wants to become president of Hertha BSC. The film follows the young entrepreneur on his mission to become the youngest president of a professional soccer club in Europe. But two days before the presidential election, an article appears in Der Spiegel, whose research suggests that Timoshin's financial background is different from what he claims.… >>>
In between reality and simulation, a dream protocol is activated, written by an AI, made from algorithms, pixels and speculative intuition.
… >>>The ""center"" serves as a metaphor for a dehumanized urban model: all movement and development of people and objects revolve around a hollow, illusory core. Robots drifting through ruins in the deep sea suggest the collapse of this center and the psychological dislocation experienced under a high-pressure society. The filmmaker is from Beijing – a vast and ever-expanding city – and this work is an abstract response to her perception of her hometown's reality.
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