The Wild & Bewildered
If i would walk you through thresholds in north-west europe, we’d start in Ancient times where one prayed to Gods to find answers or clarity. Even in medieval times, there was a God we looked to for belief. 17th century onwards, we no longer looked up but around us and saw the value of our land. We found knowledge and power in the plants and animals that surround us.
Almost simultaneously we became obsessed with the machine, to build with nature and beyond that. It was just an era later that the clouds hovering above us had to remind us of the unstable path we were walking. Every action has a reaction. What is new and wild to us today? What is now bewildering us from our familiarity? My immediate answer would be Artificial Intelligence. We are unsure of our position towards it, but believe it brings us answers.
All these different sources of knowledge have been processed and fed to us through different media. One of the most powerfull one being pictorial storytelling. An image can say more in one minute than words ever can, it is a universal language and tool of power.
At a moment in human history where uncertainities in the growing power of digital technologies arise, I want to use immersive storytelling to confront human fear for the unknown (or wild) and unleash its potential for reimagining the world.
My answer is a filmed experience of the journey of a girl that finds herself bewildered by Artificial intelligence and wishes to find familiarity in it. Wish granted, she is transported into a space that gave body to the data it holds. Physicalised are 4 thresholds in time, focussing each on what was once wild and left the human bewildered.