AI(2019)

In the almost two-minute film AI, which Lucrecia Martel created at the Viennale’s invitation, a single shifty eye looks out from a heavily pixelated image; a mouth is vaguely visible and declares: “I am not completely like other people.” Is AI coming to life here, entering a world that’s still foreign to it and that crackles, scratches and echoes? And how does our view of this eerie image change, knowing that the pixels are superimposed on a historical recording from 1961 that documents the anamnesis of a catatonic schizophrenic?