Česká republika, 2017, 5 min
Dalibor Knapp
27.01.2018 21:55
Ethnographic Study of Algorithms (3D animation, found footage) draws on the form and routines of classic ethnographic film. The plot is framed by an interview between the author - the observer and Mitsuku chatbot - the observed. Found footage depicts the views of white men and women, representatives of the colonial tradition, who undisturbed observe black natives from their shelters. This flow is interrupted by scenes modelled in 3D, where the author meets El Negro de Banyoles, a stuffed black native hunter who was exhibited in the Museo Darder until 1991. The growing parallels between algorithms and natives bring the question of who is actually the observer and who is the observed. The classic ethnographic relationship We vs. They is turned upside down. They are the algorithms that collect, categorize and record. The film directs the viewer's view to the moment when the reassuring privilege of staring becomes the very opposite, when the viewer discovers that he himself is being observed, he is just a skin without body, surface without any identity.
Dalibor Knapp is an author of video essays, texts, and installations. In his work, he focuses on anthropological research of social and cultural layers of reality and examines the constructions of various languages that talk about it. A common feature of these works is the ubiquitus question of human cognition. Dalibor studied at the Center for Audiovisual Studies at FAMU (MgA.) and Theory of Culture at the Faculty of Arts, Charles University in Prague (PhDr.). In 2013, he attended Lensbased class of Professor Hito Steyerl at Berlin University of the Arts (UdK). He is a curator of an educational platform for digital culture, art and technology Transmit and co-founder of the research studio Množina.org.
Director, Edit: Dalibor Knapp
Production: Studio FAMU
Script: Mitsuku Chatbot, Dalibor Knapp
Language of Dialogues: angličtina
Language of Subtitles: angličtina
Launching of the movie (selection):
Your face sounds familiar (galerie FAVU, Brno), Famufest 2017, PAF 2017 Olomouc