How IDFA’s DocLab is pushing the boundaries of documentary and reality

This year’s IDFA DocLab, the interdisciplinary platform for interactive and immersive documentary art, is organised around the theme of ’This Is Not A Simulation’, reflecting the increasing influence of artificial intelligence (AI).

As the 18th edition of IDFA opens with About A Hero, a hybrid film using an AI programme to generate a film in the spirit of German maverick director Werner Herzog which originated in DocLab, DocLab founder and head Caspar Sonnen talks to Screen about how DocLab and the festival complement each other. 

With the choice of an AI-driven project as opening film, are the lines between DocLAb and the main festival becoming blurred?

The lines between DocLab and the rest of the festival have always been blurred. But [About A Hero] is a beautiful crossover. This project started out in DocLab. Piotr [Winiewicz, director] and Mads [Damsbo, producer] actually came to us in 2018 with this idea to create a “Herzogian” film. They came with that quote from Herzog that “a computer would never make a film as good as mine in 4500 years” and pitched it to us saying “we gladly accept the challenge”.

That initially became an installation at our exhibition in 2019 called ‘Reflector’, where they started exploring the first iterations of the ‘Kasper’ AI they had built. Then we helped them navigate the proper channels [to make the film].

DocLab is now in its 18th edition. How has it changed and how it been working with Orwa Nyrabia [the festival director now in his final edition]?

DocLab started in a different era 18 years ago, in a much smaller festival. It was a festival that maybe in certain ways was less experimental. Eighteen years ago, documentary was very much fighting to be taken seriously. Now we are in a very different position, and we can definitely say Orwa has played a very big role in establishing documentary as an art form. He has been a great champion and a great bridge builder. 

In our first chat, I wanted to explain to him how we have this very loose definition of documentary, and how we very often push the boundaries of what is documentary. Orwa just looked at me and said, “You’re the DocLab Programme, you should be pushing the boundaries.” That gave us great freedom.

What is the thinking behind this year’s theme, ‘This Is Not A Simulation’?

One thing that prompted it was the rise of AI. We have been exploring AI [for a long time], but it has been a bit under the radar and overshadowed by VR. Now, we have seen that AI is taking away some of the spotlight from VR — and the amounts of money and energy put in to it.

But don’t AI and VR complement each other?

I think they are different technologies. Of course, they go hand in hand from the metaverse to automation and the claims of self-aware machines or hyper intelligent super computers. We have definitely seen the rise of serious philosophers starting to entertain and explore the idea that reality might just be a simulation. That’s nothing new, but the idea has been going quite far as we’ve gone through Covid and a digitised world. There’s that famous quote that reality is only the individual hallucination that we all agree upon. The US has just elected a president with his right-hand man being Elon Musk, somebody who controls tech, is the richest person in the world, and religiously believes in simulation theory. 

One of this year’s most intriguing DocLab project is ’Drinking Brecht: An Automated Laboratory Performance’, which allows the audience to drink the playwright’s DNA. What is the story behind the project?

Sister Sylvester is an artist who has shown many works at IDFA, from live performance ’The Eagle and The Tortoise’ in 2022, to a beautiful VR piece, Shadowtime, last year. ’Drinking Brecht’ is a project in which the audience is invited to create their own cocktail that has the DNA extracted from a hair contained in a hat that was stolen from the Bertolt Brecht Museum. 

This is a project that talks about the legacy of the person who made the fourth wall a concept, the difference between reality and fiction, the real world and the stage. Using ’bio art’ with real DNA, and inviting audiences to ingest this, is maybe the most superlative version of breaking the fourth wall I can imagine. The artist is playing with things that are awkward and silly on one side but that are actually meaningful and powerful, and have very real political implications.

• “Documentary film has always been annoying to authorities,” says IDFA’s Orwa Nyrabia