Aurore, by Marlies Pöschl

Artist, videographer and co-creator of the Golden Pixel Cooperative digital platform, Austrian Marlies Pöschl studied at the Academy of Fine Arts in Vienna (Austria), where she now teaches. Her unique work, which is regularly presented at international festivals (Edinburgh International Film Festival in the United Kingdom, Berlin Short Film Festival in Germany, Cinéma Vérité in Iran, etc.), invents a hybrid form situated between documentary and science fiction that alternates performances, video installations and interactive on-site projects, notably involving non-professional performers.

A voice with a semi-robotic, Siri-esque tone welcomes us, asking: “What can I do for you?” Marlies Pöschl, in her 20-minute short film, Aurore, depicts a benevolent disembodied assistant, dedicated solely to the comfort and well-being of residents of a retirement home.

Marlies Pöschl uses the contexts, territories and places in which she operates as so many “settings”. For this short film, the artist worked with primary and secondary school students and the residents of a retirement home, and collaborated with composer Peter Kutin and vocal artist Agnes Hvizdalek.

Playing with different aesthetic codes, Aurore blends the conventions of experimental film, documentary and advertising to evoke our ambivalent and complex relationship with technology. This poetic and dystopian work takes an ethical angle on the question of self, bodies and souls in our societies, which are becoming increasingly dependent on artificial intelligence.

Bringing together professionals and amateurs from several generations, Marlies Pöschl workd on Aurore during her residency at the CAC Brétigny in 2018 and at the Cité Internationale des Arts de Paris, and presented it the following year, in 2019, in preview at the Vienna Biennale in Austria.