Facebook, B61 Institute, and Tofifest proudly present: “Evolution of the Stars” and a revolution on Facebook
We are proud to announce that all those attending Tofifest 2016 will have an opportunity to see the result of a cooperation between an international team of Facebook software developers and a creative team from B61 Institute in Torun. The “Evolution of the Stars” project features a creative use of Facebook chatbots, the first one of this kind ever presented in Poland. Consequently, Tofifest has become a platform for demonstrating the latest technologies.
And it fills us with pride, since our partners from B61 Institute have decided that Tofifest would be the best place to present their project. In the near future, bots installed in the Messenger app will completely change the way Facebook communicates with its users. B61 Institute, as one of the first institutions in Central and Eastern Europe, has been authorised by the company run by Mark Zuckerberg to test one of such chatbots, using an artistic format.
„We realise that chatbots are intended primarily for pratcical use. Nonetheless, we have proposed intelligent entertainment, an artistic project with stars in the background. With access to 900 million users, we will open a virtual gallery run by an enigmatic professor from B61 Institute,” says Janek Swierkowski from B61.
During Tofifest, you will have an opportunity to see a series of films used to create the bot, while the bot of B61 Institute – named Professor Joseph Brewster – will be made available to all attendees of Tofifest, who would like to test it. Kafka Jaworska, director of Tofifest, did not hesitate for a moment to include the project in the festival programme: “Tofifest has been presenting new technologies for many years. Back in 2005, these were the first flat screens, in 2006 a discussion about the relationship between films and video games, while last year we were the first film festival to demonstrate VR goggles. I guess it is time for a chatbot.”
But what is it all about? – one might ask. Relax! First things first.
B61 Institute – “Evolution of the Stars” at Tofifest
The Evolution of the Stars is an innovative audio-visual project created by Jan Swierkowski and the Bartos brothers, based on a play of the same title, written by B61 Institute. The artists spent a couple of months in Torun, in order to create a series of films comprised of metaphorical presentations of remote astronomical phenomena and objects, such as a red giant, supernova, or blue straggler.
When working on a script, they cooperated with Dominik Smuzny, Dagmara Pochyla, and Maciej Ceglowski, in an effort to capture things that are remote and unknown on Earth in a manner understandable to people, i.e. to let audiences experience the destructive power of a black hole, or see the indescribable beauty of a planetary nebula, even if only for a short while. The series is comprised of between ten and twenty films that form a logical whole – from the birth of a star, until its death.
The following people have made guest appearances in the project: Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Mirosław Zbrojewicz, Marcelina, Łukasz L.U.C Rostkowski, Organek, Mariusz Lubomski, and Antoni “Ziut” Gralak, to name a few. The text read in the films was created by Tomek Tryzna, and the music composed by Bartek Staszkiewicz (he is also the music director behind the “Tribute to David Bowie” concert that will take place at Tofifest).
How will the “Evolution of the Stars” be presented?
The whole series will be presented in a special way, using state-of-the-art IT solutions, since it offers a unique combination of the world of science and art. The Evolution of the Stars will take the audience through each successive stage of the process, guided by a mysterious Professor Joseph Brewster from B61 Institute, who was created in the image of HAL 9000 from “Space Odyssey”.
The audience will have an opportunity to talk to Professor Brewster, using Messenger – they will be able to send messages to the fanpage of B61 Institute. From that moment, a viewer can start a dialogue with the Professor. Each new film and piece of information is sent back to the recipient, as an element of the conversation in Facebook Messenger. It is the viewer who controls and “requests” successive content directly from the Professor.
Tofifest says: A new era has started
“Facebook has got down to business and laid their cards on the table. It is history happening in front of our eyes – there is a new form of interacting with services and devices coming (although it is not that innovative). A natural language, bots, and speech – it is all yet another step to make interacting with devices more natural,” Antyweb.pl portal wrote a month ago.
What will the “bot revolution” really consist in? The Torun incarnation of the revolution constitutes its noble face, which enables promoting science and art, using chatbots. That also includes film art. However, the majority of such chatbots will be put to a much more practical use. By using Facebook Messenger, we will be able to order pizza, flowers, a courier, or check the latest news from all around the world... and virtually do anything we want. The times of dull talks with a consultant offering a bunch of predictable and artificial clichés will be gone. And our Professor is certainly not of that kind...
IMPORTANT NOTICE! Professor Brewster can be moody
“The bot imitating Professor Joseph Brewster is a tool designed in cooperation with Facebook, and we are still testing it,” warns Janek Swierkowski. Should it be impossible to use the tool, for whatever technical reason, all people attending Tofifest will have access to an Internet platform dedicated to the film project, and to a mobile app.
Well, let’s have a chat with a bot, then!
***
B61 Institute – “Evolution of the Stars” at Tofifest 2016
- Curator: Jan Świerkowski
- Directed by: Bartos brothers
- Screenplay: Bartos brothers and Jan Świerkowski
- Cinemtography and Editing: Bartos brothers
- Music: Bartek Staszkiewicz
- Text for voice-over: Tomek Tryzna
- Voice-over: Mirosław Zbrojewicz
- Production Manager: Alina Kondrat, Krzysztof Wachowiak
- Co-screenwriters: Dagmara Pochyła, Dominik Smużny
- Sound: Łukasz Milewski
- Performed by: Wojciech Mecwaldowski, Paweł Tchórzelski, Krystian Wieczyński, Dominik Smużny, Łukasz L.U.C Rostkowski, Marcelina, Antoni ZIUT Gralak, Mariusz Lubomski, Organek, Jolanta Teska, Mateusz Kaczmarek, Robert Markiewicz, Dagmara Pochyła, Natalia Rutkowska, and Jan Świerkowski
- Songs performed by the following artists have been used in the project: Mariusz Lubomski, Organek, Antoni “Ziuta” Gralak, and Marcelina
- Post-production: MANIFIESTA
- Dubbing: Studio Bartka Staszkiewicza
- Produced by: Fundacja Platon & MANIFIESTA
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