This is a sports film about a particular human utopia: the man-made autonomous machine. The film was shot during the 14 days of the 1999 robot football World Cup in Stockholm, where the artificial intelligence community declared its ambitious mission: “By the mid-21st century, a team of fully autonomous humanoid robot soccer players shall, complying with the official rules of FIFA, win the reigning champion of the most recent human World Cup.” These robot pioneers patched together from cardboard and Scotch tape will no doubt come across as endearingly primitive to 2050 audiences.
The standard rhetoric is all there: the slow-mos, the replays, the penalty kick shoot-outs in the semi-finals, the complaints about bad conditions, the video scouting, the agony, the ecstasy. As in Six Day Run, sleep deprivation is the key to victory. (MT / translation: Silja Kudel)
Cinematography: Jussi Eerola, Sound Design: Olli Huhtanen, Music: Rehberg & Bauer, Shizuo, Christoph de Babalon, Production: Kinotar / Lasse Saarinen
Selected screenings:
- Zwei Tage Strom, Filmpodium Zürich, Switzerland, 2024
- Impakt Festival, Utrecht The Netherlands, 2010
- Arctic Hysteria, P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, New York, USA, 2008
- 36th La Rochelle International Film Festival, France,2008
- Pesaro Film Festival, Italy, 2005
- Human Engineering, Migrosmuseum für Gegenwartskunst, Zürich, Switzerland, 2005
- Istanbul Biennale, Imperial Mint, Hagia Eirene Museum, Turkey, 2001
- Entropy in the Living Room, Stadtgalerie Kiel, Germany, 2001
- Dokumentart Festival, Neubrandenburg, Germany, 2000
- Ars Electronica, O.K. Centrum für Gegenwartskunst, Linz, Austria, 2000
- Outoäly, Kiasma, Helsinki, Finland, 2000
