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“Here we are in the presence of a shimmering consciousness” reads the text that opens Rainer Kohlberger’s keep that dream burning (2017). Two further lines follow before the writing fades and the scene explodes into a solar system of grayscale digital noise that continues for the film’s duration, its abstract vortexes growing ever more complex as magic-eye puzzle style mirages appear sporadically, barely perceptible within the spatial fuzz. ”A flicker of the soul is all that is needed, I believe coming here was the right thing to do.” One of many short, strangely soothing soul-flickers that the multimedia artist has produced, it was the first Kohlberger made with his latest collaborator. Produced in tandem with an AI, its hidden images are created by machine learning processes: secret shimmerings supplanted by an alien artificial consciousness.
Full article on the films of Rainer Kohlberger in Sight & Sound’s October issue.