WHAT WILL SURVIVE OF US IS LOVE
DIRECTED BY KAKIA KONSTANTINAKI
GREECE // 2020
7 MINS
Humans might have left the planet, but their legacy still resides on material and immaterial aspects of life on earth. Relics and reminiscences of humanity interact, fall in love and become creators in a very questionable high-resolution simulation.
Reflective Encounters
“The CG entities drifting around ostensibly live-action environments is reminiscent of the music video to Le1f’s Koi, though the poppy fantasmagoria is replaced with a haunting emptiness. Subtitles without a voice emphasise a feeling of loneliness akin to joining an abandoned server in a video game. In fact, the empty environments, and the eerie calm of isolation bring to mind the 1993 game Myst. The interaction between computerised images and live-action locations draws attention between two realms we tend to see as entirely distinct: the virtual and the real.
The lack of any human presence serves as an anxiety-inducing reminder that for all our technological trickery, the tools and toys we produce will likely outlive us. Imagery of the ongoing climate catastrophe tends to be unambiguously apocalyptic. Blood-red skies and gargantuan tsunamis are among the first things that spring to mind. However, in the vision set forth by What Will Survive of Us is Love, a post-human world may look more akin to Charles O’Rear’s dreamy photograph of a California hill that became the default Windows XP background, itself an image captured in the aftermath of man-made ecological disaster.”
— Cathy Brennan
Filmmaker Bio
Kakia Konstantinaki (b. 1986) is an artist based between London and Athens. Kakia holds an MA in Communication Design from Central Saint Martins and a BA in Architectural Engineering from the Technical University of Crete. Throughout the years, Kakia has worked as a 3D artist, on personal and commissioned projects and as a part-time teaching assistant in Central Saint Martins. Using 3D rendering software, Konstantinaki constructs complex augmented reality environments that blur physical world environments with computer-generated imagery.
Her ongoing Daydreaming Project is a series of experiments in speculative rendering that inserts futuristic and impossible digital forms into images of all kinds of landscapes. testing the horizon between the physical and the digital. Exhibitions, screenings include: Independent Filmakers Showcase - LA Film Festival, Los Angeles (2021); The Terminal: Human Shaped Whole, Anonymous Gallery, New York (2021); Ruins of an Extreme Present, Athens (2020); Movement Festival, Torino (2019); Singularity Now, Athens Digital Arts Festival, Athens (2018); The Intelligent Optimist, Lethaby Gallery, London;
Director’s Statement
In a post-anthropocene era, AI and self-developing entities dwelling on a human-free earth are trying to make sense of their existence. Humans might have left the planet, but their legacy still resides on material and immaterial aspects of life on earth. Relics and reminiscences of humanity interact, fall in love and become creators in a high-resolution questionable simulation.
Deriving from a non-anthropocentric point of view, this video piece focuses on offering a comforting perspective on the much discussed imminent destruction of the human race, seeking relief in the fact that the earth will well exist after humans, exactly as it did before them.
Blending CGI and actual physical world environments, I continue to explore the subject of other-than-human forms of intelligence inhabiting places traditionally known to be used by humans. At the same time, the metaphor of simulation is used as a way to try and touch upon the subject of human love.