A viral-video infused, essay focusing on how the camera & algorithmic distribution of moving images is slowly corrupting society. After a brief historical recap, FANTASTIC MACHINE by Axel Danielson & Maximilien Van Aertryck fully embraces the very entertaining imagery it is attempting to decry that waffles between nihilistic novelty and subtly implied cultural critiques. In this episode, we deconstruct their approach through the lens of Neil Postman’s Amusing Ourselves to Death, and Susan Sontag’s On Photography.
Sundance 2023 Section: World Cinema Documentary Competition
Distribution: Not available, but see Strand Releasing for updates.
From the Sundance website: A meticulous dissection of image-making and a mapping of its movement through society, directors Axel Danielson and Maximilien Van Aertryck use a mind-boggling array of archival footage to collage this sociological study by tracking the transmogrification of photographic philosophy and technology over human history. Weaving and contrasting some of the most iconic, harrowing, and viral images in our collective memory with user-generated footage that transports the viewer through time, space, and experience, Danielson and Van Aertryck intricately fashion an argument about how humans see ourselves that feels rigorous, learned, and current.
The signature analytical style this directing duo developed collaborating on shorts maps beautifully to this, their directorial debuts, arriving them to the features sphere with intellectual verve and universally accessible breadth. Their efforts to contextualize consequential imagery and trace its propagation feels critically vital in the current climate of slippery truths and altered realities. Balancing critical examination with delightful surprises, they put their footage in cacophonous, lively, enlightening conversation. For a film concerned with the construction of image, Fantastic Machine does that very thing with smarts, humor, and great stamina.
Music Credit: spacedust by airtone
Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Rough Transcript
[00:00:13.602] Kent Bye: Hello, my name is Kent Bye. And I'm Wonder Bright. And welcome to Story All the Way Down, where we're continuing our series of looking at Sundance documentaries from 2023. Today's episode is about Fantastic Machine by Axel Danielsen and Maximilian van Aertrick. So this is a part of the World Documentary Competition and received a special jury award for creative vision. So I was really excited about this film and it ended up being a little bit different from what I was expecting. I'm going to read this first description from the synopsis and then give a bit of a take of what happened after this. So it's described as a meticulous dissection of image making and a mapping of its movement through society. Directors Axel Danielsen and Maximilian Van Aertrick use a mind-boggling array of archival footage to collage this sociological study by tracking the transmogrification of photographic philosophy and technology over human history. So I feel like I was expecting like a real deep dive into like the deep philosophy of cameras and everything. And I think it started off with a bit of statements that I'll maybe read here in a bit, but then went into a whole video meme essay, deconstructing the premise that was given. I want to read this quote from Elizabeth Eastlake that they take two quotes from her and put it together. So this is with Eastlake back in like 1857 or 58, back when photography was just coming out in like 1828. And then 1838 was the first time that there's a person that's photographed. And so we're still at the very beginning of photography. And there's this Cultural critic Elizabeth Eastlake, who says, Nature is to give evidence of facts as minutely and impartially as only a machine can do. The camera records space and time simultaneously, and every photograph becomes an authentic chapter in the history of the world. Photography takes her legitimate stand. Her business is to give evidence of facts as minutely and impartially as, to our shame, only an unreasoning machine can give. And I think it was at this moment that I turned to you and said, Susan Sontag would disagree with that statement. But the rest of the film is kind of like a debunking of this statement that these machines are somehow these impartial reflectors of the true facts of our world. Because of course, it's who's behind the camera and what they're showing. It ends up being like this evolution of the camera as a machine, how has it slowly interfaced with our culture over time and that their argument is essentially that this is the essence of some of the different polarizations that we have in our society is the capacity for some of these image making machines of both the video and the camera and how our society is consuming that to some degree. So yeah, I'd love to hear some of your initial reactions and thoughts to this piece and my sort of synopsis of it so far.
[00:03:01.825] Wonder Bright: Yeah, I had a very similar experience. You showed me the title. I watched the meet the artists video. I was like, Oh, yeah, I'm 100% on board. I've been very interested in photography since I was a young girl. And men when I was in my teens used to approach me and ask if they could photograph me. And so I always had this relationship to photography and cameras that I really regarded it with a lot of suspicion. And this is like, Thank heavens long before the Internet and social media. So, you know, I got to come of age in a relatively media glare free time period in the late 80s and early 90s. But even so, when I found Susan Sontag's book on photography in my early 20s, I was like, she's totally explaining my suspicion of this medium. So I was really excited about watching this film and I felt like I'd been promised this like deep dive into the history and more of an explication of like, why this is such a problematic thing. And actually what starts to unfold is although they frame it initially with this kind of historical perspective and this idea that it's this one thing, the majority, like most of the film feels like it's just examples of the thing that they're describing, not always in glowing terms. for sure. But in essence, I just felt like I'd like opened up TikTok or Instagram or Twitter, and I was just scrolling for memes. And don't get me wrong, it was extremely entertaining. 1010 would recommend this to people. If you like looking at those memes, like it's It's fun. It's very enjoyable. At times, it's extremely uncomfortable. And, you know, like all of the extreme reactions you might have to like images of a woman hanging out of a skyscraper in Dubai or like inching towards the cliff of some far top mountaintop. But it ultimately didn't leave me with anything other than the sense that I just watched a bunch of memes. I didn't have the sense of like really deep interrogation of the themes of photography and camera that I thought I was going in for. And, you know, I could be a victim of my own expectations here. I'll totally own that. And I can't help it. That's how I felt about it.
[00:05:36.610] Kent Bye: Well, at the very first episode, I said that there was a couple of films that were bookending my experience at Sundance in a way that was kind of like the framing device in some ways. One was The 20 Days of Maripol, where I'm really bearing witness to this filmmaker who feels so compelled to film and to share the story as it's unfolding. And I really identified with, as I went on this journey of watching these 43 documentaries over the course of a week, how I was bearing witness to the stories of the world that needed to be seen and reflected upon. And then when this film came up, it was kind of like really thinking about the economics and the deeper social dynamics of what is being valued, what is being exalted, what is being picked up for distribution. And there is this kind of like, yeah, exactly like you said, this critiquing of the fact that we've devolved into this society that's not thinking deeply about these different issues and kind of really attracted to these types of video meme treatments of everything. And it kind of reminds me very much of this Neil Postman book, Amusing Ourselves to Death, where he's really predicting this type of contrast between whether or not it's going to be Orwell, who's going to be the more totalitarian control of information, or more of the Alex Huxley Brave New World, where it's the SOMA that we're going to be basically distracting ourselves to the point where we're not going to want to read the book because we're just wanting to get the digest meme version of it and we're not going to be interested enough to really dive deeper into some of these issues. And I felt like this video, in some ways, they're really brilliantly constructing this as a video essay. I was almost wanting to have a little bit more of that analysis or critique or even some quotes from Susan Sontag or other people to help feel a little bit more than that I was just eating this kind of fast food version of a video essay, but really have something to hang on to at the end of it that is I don't know, maybe giving me a little bit of hope that there's an antidote to this or some way through or way to more fully contextualize it, or if this is the way that our media ecosystem is devolving into this filter bubble, entertainment-driven society, then what is the path for how democracy is going to function? So there's a deeper questions that I felt a little bit of sadness at the end of it that the filmmakers kind of left me hanging with entertaining me through all this deconstruction of the images and recontextualizing them. But yet at the same time in their deconstruction, they're almost embodying the thing that they're critiquing.
[00:08:14.135] Wonder Bright: 100%. And, you know, maybe that was intentional on their part. But it's in the fact that it's not intentional, it ceases to land with the impact that it could if it was more clear. So, yeah, a very similar experience. You know, like my favorite quote from Sontag is photographs which cannot themselves explain anything are inexhaustible invitations to deduction, speculation and fantasy. Photography implies that we know about the world if we accept it as the camera records it. But this is the opposite of understanding, which starts from not accepting the world as it looks. All possibility of understanding is rooted in the ability to say no. And I feel like although they gave us a couple of attempts to frame the narrative about film along those lines, then the onslaught of images depicting the thing that they seemed to be decrying would immediately occur. And there was no ability to say no to them other than turning the film off. And of course, the whole point is those kinds of images and those sorts of memes are like candy. You can't stop eating them. You know, and once again, not knocking it. I have spent many a night down a Reddit hole. This isn't like a moral judgment. It's just that I would really love one more stake to put in the vampire of the endless succubi of internet memes when it comes for me with its fangs and its sugary promise. And this film did not give that to me.
[00:10:07.747] Kent Bye: Yeah, I think at the end, they start to reflect on the ways that it's been politicized, especially with talking about fake news and looking at how the news media itself are being attacked. And, you know, there's seeds there of how much the camera has been weaponized, or at least, you know, everything from TikTok and then even Meta has been seeing the impact of TikTok and competing with both TikTok and Snapchat and moving into these videos. And the degree to which that everything gets distilled down into like these short video clips, it reminds me a lot of the type of things that Neil Postman is reflecting upon in terms of Both building upon the work of Marshall McLuhan, which is the medium is the message that the medium under which that we're communicating is dictating the way that we're actually consuming a lot of these media. And we're kind of moving from an era where before the TVs that people were really writing these essays and people were really deeply critically thinking about these things. And now we're kind of at this phase that it's almost like this superficial way of encountering them. I feel compelled to play you this clip from Neil Postman and I'd love to get some of your clips because I feel like, you know, that part of my critique of this film is that I would have loved to hear a little bit more other philosophical takes than just this one quote, but to kind of give more contextualization of the media theory and evolution, whether it's from Susan Sontag or Neil Postman amusing ourselves to death.
[00:11:35.275] Wonder Bright: Or other people that we don't have a reference for. Actually, that's what I would have loved is like even more explication of this field than what I've already been exposed to.
[00:11:44.994] Kent Bye: Yeah, so I want to play you this clip. It's from a Studs Terkel interview back in the 80s, and the Amusing Ourselves to Death came out in 1985. And so Postman was invited to participate on a panel that was reflecting on 1984 and the dystopic predictions. And so this is in some part, the book that came out of it, Amusing Ourselves to Death, was a response to him trying to read the tea leaves and look forward to how we could start to expect how the media ecosystem was going to evolve.
[00:12:14.168] Neil Postman: We were keeping our eye on 1984. When the year came and the prophecy didn't, thoughtful Americans sang softly in praise of themselves. The roots of liberal democracy had held. Wherever else the terror had happened, we at least, had not been visited by Orwellian nightmares. But we had forgotten that alongside Orwell's dark vision, there was another, slightly older, slightly less well-known, equally chilling. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World. Contrary to common belief, even among the educated, Huxley and Orwell did not prophesy the same thing. Orwell warns that we will be overcome by an externally imposed oppression. But in Huxley's vision, no big brother is required to deprive people of their autonomy, maturity, and history. As he saw it, people will come to love their oppression, to adore their technologies that undo their capacity to think. What Orwell feared were those who would ban books. What Huxley feared was that there would be no reason to ban a book, for there would be no one who wanted to read one. Orwell feared those who would deprive us of information. Huxley feared those who would give us so much that we would be reduced to passivity and egoism. Orwell feared that the truth would be concealed from us. Huxley feared the truth would be drowned in a sea of irrelevance.
[00:14:00.382] Wonder Bright: I mean, the first thing that comes to my mind is here in 2023 in the United States of America, why can't we have both? You know, I mean, both of those ideas seem to be coming to pass right in front of us. And for those reasons, the last thing I want to be doing is falling down a rabbit hole of images and memes and topical expressions of humanity all across the globe, distracting ourselves. I would like us to be paying attention. I would really like us to be paying attention. I'm looking for people to curate those images in a meaningful way so that I have some clues about how to move forward and make sense out of this very confusing time and the webs of lies that we see before us now.
[00:15:07.612] Kent Bye: Yeah, I feel like there's value in what they're doing of taking a time slice of this is the zeitgeist of what we're swimming in, in terms like these are the types of images and this is what we're facing with. If there was an alien from another planet that was coming in trying to understand how things are going so wrong, I might show them this film to say, okay, here's how we're coping with it through this kind of distraction. But I think what Neil Postman is saying is that there's this Elvis Huxley turned towards pleasure and the distraction and the amusing ourselves to death type of idea that things get turned inward into the egoism. I mean, there's so many things that he's saying that to me feel so prophetic. I mean, obviously with 1984 with surveillance capitalism and everything else with the big tech, it's less that We do have actually a lot of surveillance from the government, but if anything, we have even more surveillance that's coming from our corporations and that we are willingly participating in both of yielding of our private data and our personal data, as well as watching these images that are highly entertaining, but yet, again, are not necessarily nutritious to the point where it's kind of metaphorically, we're eating a lot of candy and calorie-free food that how long can we really sustain ourselves as a society when we keep this path going forward. But yet, as a culture, we have the free will to be able to decide what we're intaking. But there's these dopamine loops that we get into that are so rewarding. That's, I guess, the wanting to get into the how do you break out of the cycle? What is the dopamine cycle? And what is this search for novelty? And why do we have it? I mean, I feel like there's other research and neuroscientists that have kind of like deconstructed some of those aspects of our our human anatomy that's driving us towards that. And I wanted to see more of that in this film to help give me a way out.
[00:16:58.438] Wonder Bright: Yeah, we could easily have done without like five or 10 minutes of footage of just memes and spent some time with some neuroscientists making links between social media and the way that algorithms are designed to hook us into these helpless, repetitive cycles. Because it isn't just the images, is it? It's the technologies. It's a lot of different technologies meeting together at a really poisonous intersection that is being used for malicious gain for corporations who really want our eyeballs.
[00:17:33.237] Kent Bye: Yeah, and I will say that after I watched this film, it did make me reflect upon if I am going down one of those video rabbit holes unconsciously, you know, just kind of chasing that novelty or there was a degree of making me pause. So I do think that there can be just by bearing witness to the absurdity and how it is kind of subtly connecting the dots between this type of memory and images and things that are really novel and exciting and thrilling in a way that we share these videos with our loved ones. and our friends and family, but also just how the political realm has also adopted all these different dimensions of this information warfare and these filter bubbles, the degree to which that our information that we're gathering, how much are we able to break out of these certain bubbles of information and really diversify the information that we're taking in? I think there was the previous conversation we had with Ohm, The Cult of the End of the World, where we're really deconstructing this ways in which that these movies about cults are really actually applying to the way that our different political parties are cults within themselves, because the way that they're curating information and declaring what is truth and what is fake news and, you know, creating a bifurcation between these different aisles of the political spectrum, what each of them is a baseline of the truth. And I think that in some ways, this film, A Fantastic Machine is more of the spectacle of that experience. I don't know. I think there is some value of having these images washed over you. I mean, clearly the jury awarded it with a special jury prize, but I guess there's a part of me that still is feeling like I just am looking for something more or something that wasn't there. And maybe that's part of what we're doing here in this conversation is trying to give a little bit more of that context or do a sense making process of what we just experienced with this film.
[00:19:30.315] Wonder Bright: Yeah, I mean, I would love to know what the jury saw that had them think that it deserved this award, because I wouldn't have given the award. Having said that, this would be a film that I would recommend people watch, if only just because it's entertaining. Like, it's just fun to watch. It's fun to watch. What can I say? So, you know, on that level, I can 100% recommend it for entertainment purposes. But obviously, you and I have a tendency towards really want to like, go deep and like really analyze something and come away with a sense of like, a new reflection on ourselves and the world around us. So, you know, you and I, you know, at least in so far as what we're looking for in the films that we're sharing in this series, are really looking for films that kind of, I think, illuminate our life and help us look at it a little bit differently and maybe give us some insights into different ways of seeing things than the way that we've already been seeing them. And so in that sense, this film could only ever tease at that possibility. It didn't actually provide it.
[00:20:49.840] Kent Bye: So yeah, as we start to wrap up here, I guess one of the things that I want to bear witness to is, you know, just a witnessing of the spectacle that our society is being drawn to. And like I said, this film is capturing a time slice of the media sphere of what we're experiencing. And like historically, as people look back on this time period, I think it will accurately represent the types of dopamine loops that we get hooked into. I'm hoping that people in the future, they look back on it and are able to see that it was a phase that we were able to move through and maybe evolve as a culture and hopefully not continue down that path of mindless exploration of that spectacle and that high. But again, like I said, there was something about this film that stuck with me in terms of evaluating what other films within this documentary selection get honored, which ones are getting picked up for distribution, which ones are drawing the media attention. You know, this whole ecosystem of media production that is being curated by Sundance, it made me reflect upon the types of films that do get picked up one that you didn't see, but is called The Deepest Breath that has elements of that spectacle that I feel like is a thrilling ride, but yet at the same time, some other films that may not get picked up that are also bearing witness to other things that are also important that I feel like, I don't know, maybe it's this lesson of in order to really get seen or listened to at a wider context, you have to find a way to wrap it into an entertaining bow. And I don't know if I have personally the capacity to do that with my own work, but who knows? We'll see how this podcast gets out into the world. But I guess as I think about this film, it makes me think about the larger economic dynamics of distribution and the realities. it kind of contextualizes for me this larger ecosystem of media, media production, and what's it mean to produce media and have it consumed. Because this is a piece that will be seen, I think. It has a good chance of getting picked up and seen. And my only question is the artist's intent of what they were intending to do and how much of that is going to be transmitted, or if it's going to be more spectacle that's not necessarily pushing any needle forward. I don't know. It's hard to tell whether or not
[00:23:13.598] Wonder Bright: I think that's because, from my opinion anyway, the intent of the filmmakers is not actually very clear. Because the expressed intent, which is seemingly couched in the quotes and framework that they give for the history of photography, is completely undercut by the images that they show from the modern world. That said, it is a really fun watch. I'm sure it will get distribution. Definitely go see it if you're interested in photography. And some of the historical footage that they show is also just interesting just from the standpoint of like, you know, getting to see just from the standpoint historically of watching early images until now, is just a fun ride. And in keeping with that, what I would like to bear witness to is the editing on this film, even if I am unconvinced ultimately by the finished product as a whole. The editing is so keen in terms of, especially once they start getting into the modern day memes and TikToks and short videos filmed by everyday citizens, because the way that they slice them together and the momentum with which they do it allows these short, teeny, discrete instances to all kind of move together in one endless stream of images and film. It's really beautiful. So the two filmmakers, Axel Danielsen and Maximilian Van Aertrick, are listed second to their lead editor, Mikkel Karlsson. It's just really well done. So yeah.
[00:24:55.146] Kent Bye: Yeah, just the way that they're able to juxtapose the images and communicate these larger messages. So yeah, really pushing what the medium of film can do and be able to communicate in So yeah, that was Fantastic Machine by Axel Danielsen and Maximilian van Aerturk. It was part of the World Documentary Competition and was given a special jury award for creative vision. No distribution has been announced as of this point. So thanks again for joining us for Story All the Way Down. If you'd like more information for how you can support the podcast, you can go to storyallthewaydown.com to find more information about this series and what we're up to and different ways that you can support the podcast. So thanks for joining us.
