Ex Nihilo
Ex Nihilo is an experimental short documentary about life, death and our attempts to control them. It tells three separate and seemingly unrelated stories that slowly entwine, creating new interpretations and meanings.
The first film is about one of the most advanced humanoid robots, HUBO. HUBO can walk on uneven terrain, drive a vehicle and operate different tools. It can also transform into a four-wheel vehicle and has a built-in voice recognition system. The second film takes the viewer to Oregon Cryonics, a cryonics organization in Salem, Oregon, USA where deceased people's brains are stored at very low temperatures for a possible future in which they could be revived. The objective is that, in the future, the brain or its memory might be revived or reconstructed. The third film is about the Svalbard Global Seed Vault, which is situated on the island of Spitsbergen midway between Norway and the North Pole. The vault holds seeds of more than 4000 different plant species at −18 °C. The crates of seeds from all around the world are kept side-by-side deep inside the frozen vault.
Timo Wright (FI) is a media artist based in Helsinki, Finland. His work has been shown at international exhibitions and festivals, including Kunsthalle Charlottenborg, Helsinki Design Museum, IDFA, Slamdance, Nordisk Panorama, the Rotterdam International Film Festival and the Japan Media Arts Festival.
The film program is presented in partnership with Imagine Science Films (ISF), New York, an international platform spreading new and experimental works at the interface between science and film.