Imagine Science Films was conceived in 2008 in a drosophila genetics lab in New York City with a simple idea: of changing the way the laboratory and the cinema related to each other. Ten years later, ISF is still bridging that gap between scientists, filmmakers, and the viewing public, exploring the multitude of ways that scientific subjects can be explored through film. Not just through classic science documentaries or sci-fi, but through all the thrilling spaces between: lab experiments on film, scientific fictions, sci-inspired experimental film, and stunning data visualization.
The Hyper-Present at the Edge of the Future
The hypothetical future has long served as a precision tool for analyzing the all-too-real particulars of the present. It is in this way that these films — examining a humanity poised at the edge of merging with, or being superseded by, its technological creations — have much to tell us about ourselves and the current historical moment. In keeping with Imagine Science’s usual mission, approaches between the films vary widely, from a frenetic transhuman musical collaged from the detritus of the digital age, to a science fictional documentary investigation of the futuristic hyper-present, from connectivity in the womb to a sterile post-civilization found-footage dystopia. The post-future may be only a step beyond the present.
Curator | Nate Dorr
Nate Dorr is a photographer, filmmaker, neuroscientist, and film obsessive. He’s been curating the Imagine Science Film Festival since 2013, which neatly connects the parallel lines of his former simultaneous projects since he operated an animal behavior lab at Mt. Sinai School of Medicine, photographed and filmed concerts and post-human landscapes for Impose Magazine, and programmed the short film and experimental sections of the Brooklyn Film Festival.
#PostModem | Jillian Mayer & Lucas Leyva | U.S.A | 2013 | 15′
Digital Native | Mahboobeh Mohammadzaki | Iran | 2014 | 5′
Autonomous | Per Eriksson & Alexander Rynéus | Sweden | 2014 | 14′
The Bionic Girl | Stéphanie Cabdevila | France | 2014 | 15′
The Invention of the Desert | Thibault Le Texier | France | 2014 | 7′
