Sonzai Zone (2019) is a speculative fiction film on intimacy and loneliness after the normalization of ambient communication media. An unlikely encounter between Yún and Souvd takes place in a near-future where social interactions are largely based on the mediation of human presence, known as ‘Sonzai-kan’. Shifting between XR games, Immersion Arcades and spatial home displays, their insidiously orchestrated relationship escalates into extreme idealization. Meanwhile, Souvd’s ex-girlfriend Ntzumi launches into an undercover investigation.
THIS SCREENING HAS PASSED
2019, 2K video, stereo, 23:13 minutes
Biography
Emilia Tapprest
NVISIBLE.STUDIO is the independent research practice of Finnish designer and filmmaker Emilia Tapprest (b. 1992). She is currently based in Maastricht and is resident at the Jan van Eyck academie during 2020-2021. Her research explores visceral implications of rapid technocultural developments through speculative worldbuilding and cinema, working in close collaboration with historian of science and music producer Victor Evink. Their films tackle themes such as human connectedness and agency in the quantified age, exploring how a system's underlying logic produces particular ‘affective atmospheres’ in interaction with its social fabric.
Coming from the background of industrial design and interactive prototyping at the Aalto University in Helsinki, she completed her second master in film at the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam in 2019. With an early interest in ubiquitous computing and ambient intelligence as objects of design, her focus has shifted to investigate implications of emerging technologies and new power arrangements in society at large.