LAST LOOK (2020)
Shot, Cut, Sound by: William Humphrey
Additional Soundscapes by: Alex Tesolin
Last Look is a film composed of found footage, live performances, and haptic cineportraits. Made during the summer of 2020, in the midst of the global pandemic, the film explores societal and cultural disintegration through technology. The film’s name comes from a study showing that bots now occupied the majority of users on Twitter, outnumbering human beings on the platform. This change in balance, in power dynamic, where artificial intelligence now had more sway in digital ongoings than people did was alarming. The film comes from a personal need to create a last look at our cyber-infrastructures before an eminent shift towards AI. Through the usage of creative recapturing techniques such as pinhole photography I am able to isolate source material and collage it together with other images. This collision allows for the creation of new connotations. In this sense I am using collaged imagery as grammar when addressing topics such as artificial intelligence, social media botting, accelerationism, data mining, screen culture, and global tracking. The film features a shaken cineportrait of each of my close friends during the pandemic, commemorating the support and love I received during that time. Sounds were taken from the IMCA sound library at Concordia University and Freesound.org. Additional soundscapes were provided by Alex Tesolin.
