Seriesly set out its high-concept stall, Wednesday, with an opening keynote that straddled film, TV, art, politics, sport, architecture by way of video games and social media. The Berlin confab is in its second year and director and Igor Simić’s keynote – entitled “Are We Content With ‘Content’” – was a freewheeling take on where the attention economy meets tech and what that means for creators.
Serbian-American artist and filmmaker Simić said he is working on an animated hybrid that blends classic animation Steamboat Willie and Carl Theodor Dreyer’s landmark 1928 film The Passion of Joan of Arc, as both are now out of copyright.
“There is a complete commingling of the virtual and the real and it’s all content, politics is content,” Simić said about a world where TV, videogames, art, YouTube, social media, and real events compete for attention.
Simić, who is also creative director of videogame outfit Demagog Studio, said: “Everyone is using this term ‘content’, and no-one really knows what it means and there are two attitudes in general. One of which is [about] the end times and that everything will turn to shit with AI. And the other attitude is that this is a great opportunity.”
In that landscape of overwhelming choice and images and experiences, he said people creating content, whatever form it takes, should focus on what matters to them.
“The job of creators is to create oxygen in which people want to spend their time. It has to be authentic in that way we don’t and we shouldn’t obsess over the attention of viewers. We should focus on our own attention. Where are we putting our love? Those are the stories that will end up mattering.”
Simić dished details of the animated project, he is working up. “I’m working on this short animation where Mickey Mouse has a religious vision, and Joan of Arc appears to him, sending him on a mission to save our souls. The reason we are doing this, it is a test and we are a work in progress, is because on January 1, 2024 the Steamboat Willie and The Passion of Joan of Arc by Dreyer entered public domain. So that’s their spiritual connection.”