Project “Sweet Evolution”, 2007
“Being and Not Being”

The project “Sweet Evolution” was commissioned for Swiss Television's “Sternstunde” program and consists of four computer-generated films. The work illuminates various aspects of the objects of scientific research: how what is researched changes our view of the world – and even transforms the world itself.

The film “Sein und Nicht Sein” (Being and Not Being) is a timeless dance of the elements in an unknown space. Things take shape and then dissolve – as if some kind of primal matter continually spawned new manifestations, only to let them disappear back into nothingness.

The film “Organisches und Anorganisches” (Organic and Inorganic) centers on the interplay of human and robotic creatures. As a technoid being outfitted with artificial intelligence as well as a complex system of sensors expanded beyond its innate biological senses – this robot creature explores the world.

In the film “Natürliches und Künstliches” (Natural and Artificial) we see a world that has become a laboratory. Natural and manmade organisms, plants and living creatures grow, mutate and interact – developing into hybrid organisms and showing how man increasingly intervenes in the organization of matter and dabbles in the design of new forms of life. Here nature has become a controlled program.

The film “Werden und Vergehen” (Becoming and Passing Away) embeds nature in a developmental process of evolution – a journey through time from the past via the present to a distant hypothetical future. Combining fragments of the past with fragments of the present and those of an imagined future, this condensed evolutionary history is not only meant to show that everything is subject to the principle of becoming and passing away, but also that matter can transform itself at will.

Text: Maya von Moos

Title: Being and Not Being
Year: 2007
Length: 1:00 min.
Technique: computer-generated in 3D, with sound, 16:9 PAL
Edition of 5