SATFEST
Celebrate the Best of SATFEST with our hosts.
The Society for Arts and Technology presents the latest edition of SAT Fest, its immersive short film festival in the Satosphere.
Since its first edition in 2012, the SAT Fest has become a major event for immersive creation, offering ample room for experimentation and artistic creativity. With its eclectic selections of short films specially designed for domes, SAT Fest has fueled the imagination of thousands of spectators and highlighted the universe and creative vision of more than a hundred local and international visual and sound artists.
SAT Fest returns with a presentation of this year’s 7 award-winning films, which were selected by a jury of immersive artists and specialists as well as a public vote.
The program includes an urban exploration of a surreal labyrinth (Labyrinth); a colorful low-poly bird’s eye view flight over Europe (Swarm); an oneiric contemplative respite (Jacinthe.xyz); a psychedelic visual study of the world of economics (Introduction à l’économétrie); A spiral down the world of memory and dementia (Grandma’s House); A genetic love affair with a stop-motion flair (The Orchid and the Bee); and a fictitious analysis of our Earth through the eyes of an outer-space entity (Astro).
LABYRINTH
A labyrinth is a space urging a person to constant movement. When viewed from above, we have an objectively distinguishable idea of a line, a pattern or an ornament. In a labyrinth, we fall under the visual impact of a particular configuration of space, which is impossible to get out of, being stuck in the disorientation effect. We switch to a subjective perception of life. As we move continuously, the perception of the labyrinth space changes every second. Squares, streets, passages, corridors, rooms form a dynamic structure of the urban labyrinth. The film represents an attempt to combine the architectural fantasy of a labyrinth and the visual experience of walking through time.
The Orchid and the Bee
Nature is wondrous and clever. As Darwin taught us, those who improvise most effectively prevail. There are species who under threat revert to earlier forms, others who cultivate parasitic relationships with neighbouring beings, while the most inventive ones transform their bodies to mimic and seduce unsuspecting companions. The Orchid and the Bee is an expressionistic VR ode to life’s struggle for existence, explored through a chain of genetic love affairs.
SWARM
Maarten Isaäk de Heer (Germany)
Swarming is a behavioral phenomenon to survive, but more than often, it is a prelude for extinction. Fly with the flock as they travel from Germany, over the Alps, to the Mediterranean Sea. Small birds migrating over exhausted and exploited landscapes. Robins, tits and sparrows do not usually migrate this far, but in a near future, they might. Swarm offers a bird's eye's view over landscapes of three dimensional photo collages that show a part of Europe after climate change.
Grandma’s House
David Gardener (Canada)
A story of memory and dementia. Recalled memories of time spent at grandma’s house become ever more confused, as the film spirals into the depths of dementia. The memories become muddled and confused as the film progresses, matched with the ever increasing strangeness of the animated scenes depicting the memories.
ASTRO
Weidi Zhang – Weilu Ge – Shaoyu Su (USA)
In Astro, our earth, the only astronomical object is known to harbor life, is unfolded through the lens of an intelligent being in outer space. As it rotates lens to zoom in and out, the journey of observation brings the multi-scale discoveries of ecological changes and machinic visions with an artistic imagination: from a vast forest where the flames roar into the wild creatures to the melting iceberg revealing hidden information, from the diagrams of ancient pseudoscience (astrology) to the latent walk of AI’s generation, from the data-driven landscape to the algorithmic generative visuals, from climate change to the creature’s migration. This audio-visual work poses a question: why explore space in the context of known and unknown as well as folding and unfolding.
Jacinthe.XYZ
Sébastien Labrunie - Clément Putegnat (France)
When was the last time you took a moment to really look at one small ordinary thing? We are exposed to massive amounts of pictures and signals every day, and we're trained to swipe and process large quantities of content. This piece is about taking a break from the continuous data flow. It’s about slowing down and contemplating the tiny ordinary beautiful things that we usually swipe away. JACINTHE.XYZ explores the full color palette of one single 3D photogrammetric scan of a group of hyacinths. Using real-time modulations and distortions, the visual characteristics of the subject derive into different pictorial rhythms. The soundtrack comes from a recording of a live clarinet/looper improvisation session by the talented french musician Clément Putegnat, providing an added layer of acoustic poetry.
Introductory Econometrics
Lydia Yakonowsky (Canada)
Introductory Econometrics is an exploration of generative visuals, representing creative imaging of diverse elements of economic modelisation. In this film, the curves free themselves from the theory of economics as to move throughout a vibrant universe of data, in a vast autocorrelation choreography; the graphic grid interfaces evolve to create new spaces, immense walls, starry ceilings.
