Understanding the Internet as an environment comes with relative ease these days.
Before its popular appeal, it was something of a mystery for many. It sparked fantasies of
technological masterminds, military compounds, and the Cold War. Nowadays, it features just
about everything the real world has to offer. They say, it’s even supposed to be a place for
social and cultural interaction. Sure, our technological capabilities might still limit the
extent of what’s possible, but it is rather ownership and power relations that negatively
influence its use. During the late 90´s, the Internet did feel less like an environment, but
it was engulfed by its original vision of a better world. (Thorsten Wagner)
From fictitious child and teenage bedrooms of the 80s and 90s emerge adolescent men and their tech-fantasies. Computers of the past, often little smaller than the room they're in, coexist with trashed Coca-Cola cans and dirty socks. The film inquires after the whereabouts of those who occupied these habitats. Its story concerns the gender roles male technophiles find themselves in and the destructive paths they often lead to.… >>>
A cyber creature called Yeva is bored of her webspace rose garden. She is the personification of "Faces," an Austrian feminist network founded in 1997 (https:www.faces-l.net). Originally, it was nothing more than a simple mailing-list. Soon, it numbered more than 300 members, all and exclusively women working with digital technology: Hackers, multi-media artists, digital scientists, activists, and cyber-punks. For years, their communication fed Yeva's mind and knowledge. When the server started acting up, Yeva advanced to the earthly world to meet her "mothers," the founders of "Faces." Now, she conducts interviews with them about the future of the internet and its feminist revision.… >>>
- Director: Charlotte Eifler
During lockdown, André Santos Martins virtually recreated his Berlin neighborhood. As an avatar, he strolled through the streets, noticing just how much is still in disarray. He openly contemplates the possibility of a cyber-society. Meanwhile, he travels the world in "Second Life," a virtual online recreation of our planet which was subject of much discussion during the early 2000s and is now an exemplary case of what has proven to be true for the entire internet: The commercialization of virtual spaces has effectively ruined any hopes for a free digital environment. And so, the artist and his avatars dwell in nostalgia of a time in which idealistic promises of the internet still seemed realizable.… >>>
- Director: André Santos Martins
Specifically during the pandemic, the internet has become an outlet allowing us to express emotional, social, and cultural desires - with no danger of contagion. Thus, two bored and lonesome teenagers meet in a chatroom. They go to a virtual dance and travel together through time and space; an escape from lockdown, mainly. Nevertheless, the tech-world never fully satisfies and so despite all efforts, they always return back into the pandemic.… >>>
Nominated:
Goldener Key
- Director: Andrés Santacruz
