EACHOTHER in Hamburg

A million beings, living and dying on a wall in the dark.

Last month I showed a build of EACHOTHER at the 42nd Kurzfilm Festival Hamburg, in the Open Space at the Festival Centre Post, June 3–7.

It’s a simulation of a million beings who live, find each other, bond, fight, breed and die. Each being a basic atom of consciousness - asking every frame; what do I see, where do I go.

I have been very inspired by the world of biosim, artificial life. It’s a largely academic field, I am interested in it because it’s beautiful.

The show opened with a small cohort and grew toward a million across the five days, the whole drama unfolding out of Beethoven’s Ninth stretched to around 12 hours.

When the music goes low, war can break out; when it turns bright, gravity drops, they can fly. A basic fight/flight mechanism. Because it never stops running, extinction is always possible.

I’ve wanted to make this one for a long time. It’s still in progress.

Here are a few photographs from the run.

Me talking it through with Maike Mia Hohne, who directs the festival, a great friend for almost 20 years.

Colour is used to reflect state. Every one of them is feeling something and wears it. Joy, grief, pain etc. Still experimenting with this.

If you came, thank you. Watching people watch it was the best part of the whole thing, and I learned so much. More soon.

- David

Photographs by Alex Large & Claudia Höhne.