Os Humores Artificiais, 2016

Author: Gabriel Abrantes

16 mm film, transferred to HD video.

Produced by Herma Films.

With the financial support of Fundação Serralves. Bienal de São Paulo, Collection loaned by Inelcom Arte Contemporáneo e Instituto de Cine y Audiovisual ICA.

Duration: 30 minutes.

Fiction movie with a documentary approach that studies anthropology and analyses artificial intelligence as a means of social control social and a complex communication style. The movie, with tinges of humour, focuses on human relationships and tells the story of an indigenous girl from the Yawalapiti tribe, aged 16, called Jo, who lives in the town of Mato Grosso, a region in the Amazon. The anthropologist Claude Laroque, with the aid of the young girl, undertakes research into the way of transmitting emotions to robots. Together they teach Coughmann, the robot, a guide to identify a series of human emotional states. Coughmann’s intelligence acknowledges the advantage of remaining friendly when he does not manage to understand something and then at least feign understanding. And the understanding of the fundamental nature of humour, helps each one to comprehend the other. Coughmann falls in love with Jo. The power of love overcomes each reboot.

With grandiose imagery, Abrantes tells of this love. The great questions on life that cannot be discussed without humour, he quotes Ludwig Wittgenstein and in Os Humores Artificiais, he merges thoughts on anthropology, the lifestyle of the indigenous community and the idiosyncrasies of artificial intelligence.

The film, which uses a Hollywoodesque aesthetic, was filmed in Mato Grosso, São Paulo, Canarias and the hamlets of Yawalapiti and Kamayura located in the indigenous settlement of Xingu.

The project came into being out of the interest that the artist has always shown in linking humour with anthropology, artificial intelligence and an political backdrop. Humour is at the fore of his work to show human relationships and it is one of the most complex forms of communication. The movie toys with humour ranging from indigenous traditions to comic androids and their intersection with the police, from the conflicts in the townships to the massive indigenous protests.

Script: Gabriel Abrantes.
Cinematography: Jorge Quintela.
Sound: Marcel Costa, Carlos Abreu.
Editing: Margarita Lucas.
Music: Aamourocean.
Production: Herma Films.
Support: Fundación Serralves, Bienal de Sao Paulo, Colección Inelcom.
Cast: Margarita Lucas, Amanda Rodarte, Gilda Nomacce, Ivo Müller, Jeann Segundo, Mateo Rolim Rodrigues, Rafaela Rocha, Patricia Soso.