WHAT DYING FEELS LIKE
A film by Philip Ullman
2021 | 9:03 mins | Digital Video | Color | 25fps
A mouse finds herself reciting childhood memories in a sterile living room. Shards of an alienating past paint the portrait of a human life. A sense of loss pervades the atmosphere as she's torn between being human and being mouse, between being alive and being in a simulation.
Director’s statement
By capturing movements and voices inherent to the human body from actors and applying these to non-humans and humans, scattered throughout fictional 3D animated realities, I question the grounds of which sentience is prescribed. Why is one life more valuable than another? Through the screen, it becomes difficult to decide whether something is sentient or not. In film, it’s often related to a display and expression of emotions, which is something I try to dissect and work with in my practice. The scenario of being trapped reoccurs in the works and the spaces are almost always closed spaces indoors, with no views of the outside. This makes them hard to place and hard to decide whether they could exist or not. This is also a reason why I work in 3D animation, because of its position between gaming and film, alive and dead, real and unreal.
Selections:
2021 Refresh. Programme d’art contemporain expérientiel et post-digital. - Quai du Platier, Paimpol (FR)
2021 International Competition - Beijing International Short Film Festival, Beijing (CN)
2022 Nordic Competition - Minimalen, Trondheim (NO)
2022 Short and Midlength Competition - IFFR, Rotterdam (NL)
2022 Competition - Kaboom Animation Festival, Amsterdam (NL)
2022 Mental State - Video Art Festival Turku, Turku (FI)
2022 Screening - What You See Is What You Get, Den Haag (NL)
2022 MiX Milano, Milan (IT) (online program)
2023 Duhuang Animation Festival, Beijing (CN)