Shanzhai Sonata
Image Courtesy of Presense.
This is a film that depicts Shenzhen as it adapts itself to host the world’s largest population of synthetic replicas created through “Presense” – a machine learning platform which is able to extrapolate users’ behaviour patterns into any number of distant environments. Shanzhai Sonata speculates on the ‘post-work’ economy emerging in Shenzhen, as more people begin to rely on their synthetic replicas for economic gains. The notion of replication is important as a power relationship existing between the ‘real’ and the ‘copy’, focusing on the condition in which a ‘copy’ is superior to the ‘original’.
This is a film that depicts Shenzhen as it adapts itself to host the world’s largest population of synthetic replicas created through “Presense” – a machine learning platform which is able to extrapolate users’ behaviour patterns into any number of distant environments. Shanzhai Sonata speculates on the ‘post-work’ economy emerging in Shenzhen, as more people begin to rely on their synthetic replicas for economic gains. The notion of replication is important as a power relationship existing between the ‘real’ and the ‘copy’, focusing on the condition in which a ‘copy’ is superior to the ‘original’.
Milestone
2019.Q3
Project awarded Design Trust Seed Grant
2019.12-2020.03
The film is screened at the Bi-City Biennale of Urbanism\ Architecture 2019 “Eyes of the City” in Shenzhen
2020.03
A talk and screening of the film is held at Global Open Data Day, Moscow
- 2019
- Grantee: Gleb Papyshev, Svetlana Gorlatova, Artem Nikitin and Igor Sladoljev
- Organisation: Presense
Presense, was originally conceived by urbanist and filmmaker Igor Sladoljev, Asian scholar Gleb Papyshev, art curator Sveta Gorlatova and an architect Artem Nikitin in 2019 at Strelka Institute for Architecture, Media and Design in Moscow within The New Normal program directed by Benjamin H. Bratton and was first presented in June 2019.
As an expanded urban design practice, Presense team is exploring the intersections of urban planning, synthetic modelling and predictive
engines, through text and film narrative. As an extension to the research, the team is developing a speculative machine learning platform, which aims to test the ideas about the capacities of human-scale predictive modelling, which is to be presented at ‘Eyes of the City’ exhibition, part of UABB, 2019.
- Project Result: Shanzhai Sonata
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Produced by Presense
Direction, cinematography, edit by Igor Sladoljev
Research & Story by Igor Sladoljev, Gleb Papyshev, Sveta Gorlatova & Artem Nikitin
Music by Ante Medic
Visual effects by Nathan Su & Igor Sladoljev