World Upstream, 2023-2024

Description: World Upstream is an inquiry into the aesthetics of leisure. Set in a fictional future which takes for granted the embodiment of artificial intelligence - and with it, the fulfilled techno-utopian promise of freedom through automation - World Upstream asks what remains once labor becomes obsolete.

​ The setting is a strange picnic. A cast of characters - including a wise poplar tree, a group of quadruplets, or a Dyson vacuum, all equipped with artificial minds - become equal-parts shareholders in re-wilding an ageing piece of infrastructure: a hydroelectric dam on its path towards obsolescence.

​ World Upstream exists as a live simulation constructed in a game engine, and it presents as a film which edits itself in real time. The storytelling techniques of traditional cinema are replaced by emergent behaviors, as the conjunction of camera movement, character action and environment design leads to the unfolding of proto-narratives: snippets of action and intentionality which live somewhere between the screen and the viewer’s imagination.

​ The simulated nature of the work also means that the picnic never ends. As long as the GPU fans are spinning and the electricity is flowing, its characters are doomed to continue producing their performative labor of leisure.