Written and Directed by Pete Gomes
Hi8/ dv /computer [1997]

Visually influenced by cybernetic cinema and the works of Whitney Brothers, Jordan Belson and '2001', this short narrative film explores computers, consciousness and emotion.

Using text to speech programme, a computer speaks a monologue about life, death and memory.

Visually the film explored low resolutions and pixellation, and the image was enlarged specifically to degrade the image surface.

Part of a series of mandalic films, including, Drop, Cycle, Sensory, and End Beginning.

The companion film to Artifical Sentience is End Beginning which shows a man speaking a monologue about memory and perception.

This film was described and explored in the piece 'Bridging the Digital Divide' for

Filmaves #3 magazine which examined the roots of computer filmmaking in the context of the digital revolution.

This was the first film I made on computer and the credits include all the 1996 software and hardware I used to make it, including Photoshop 2.5 and Mac Performa 5320.

Owning to my inabiltiy to process large images, the film was actually made at 160x120 and I blew it up and mastered onto Beta SP. I worked extensively to achieve a particular pixelated texture.