Director: Adam Cole

Bio: Adam is an American new media artist working at the intersection of art and technology. He is currently based in the UK and recently completed his master’s at the Creative Computing Institute, University of the Arts London. His work spans both the digital and physical and focuses on the various ways identity and intimacy are mediated through technology. Using an innovative computational practice, he explores these themes using microprocessors, 3D rendering engines, creative coding algorithms, and AI networks. With a keen interest in the history of images, Adam’s work attempts to continue a queer tradition of twisting popular media conventions to reveal unspoken double meanings.

You can see more of the artist’s work on Instagram @adamcole.studio.

Director Statement
This piece is an experiment in the new aesthetic possibilities of AI video manipulation and a reflection on the very nature of the technology. Formally the piece plays with new montage techniques made possible with AI. Aesthetically it hints at the deep, dark desires lurking under the surface connecting it to Vertigo’s themes of artificial personas and dangerous desires for the unreal. This film draws on that reference to reflect on the interplay between human emotions, artificial personas, and the allure of simulated experiences. It invites viewers to contemplate the strange desires that may arise when humans interact with advanced technologies that blur the line between the real and the unreal, and the way cinema has already clouded that distinction.

Film: In this horror-romance, the iconic kiss scene from Hitchcock’s Vertigo is transformed via AI into something both deliciously intimate and wickedly grotesque. In the process, this experimental short reveals the dark, hidden desires that lay beneath the surface and our insatiable lust for the artificial.