Our Ark

Synopsis

We are backing up the planet, creating 3D models of animals, rainforests, cities and people. We are archiving as if ecological collapse could be staved off through some digital Noah’s Ark of beasts and objects. Our Ark is an essay film on our efforts to create a virtual replica of the real world.

Director Biography

Deniz Tortum (Istanbul, 1989) is a filmmaker, based in New York. His work has screened internationally, including at the Venice Film Festival, IFFR, SxSW, Sheffield, True/False and Dokufest. He has worked as a research assistant at the MIT Open Documentary Lab, where his research focused on virtual reality. In 2017-2018, he was a fellow at Harvard Film Study Center, working on "Phases of Matter", which premiered at International Film Festival Rotterdam in 2020. Kathryn Hamilton is a theater director based in New York and Istanbul. She is the founder of Sister Sylvester, a performance group. Recent productions include Three Rooms, a live skype documentary which premiered at Shubbak Festival in London, and has toured Europe and US, and which critiques technologies promising ‘presence’ and ‘mobility’ in the context of the crisis over refugees; The Fall a performance essay at The Public Theater for Under The Radar, currently touring US universities; Other work has been performed at The Park Avenue Armory, NYC; Bozar, Brussels; Arcola, London. Her work has been reviewed by New York Times, New Yorker, Time Out, Village Voice, American Theater Magazine, Performance Art Journal.