Wider Than the Sky

An astonishing encounter is taking place: a conversation between Emeca, a humanoid robot with female features and complex facial expressions, and Adam, an engineer and artist. He asks her: “Can you feel emotions? What does it mean for you to feel?” This familiar science-fiction trope — from Blade Runner to Her — which explores whether a machine might possess a “soul,” feels increasingly close to our present reality, feeding both fascination and fantasy. While machines are still incapable of experiencing emotion, and perhaps never will be, they seem to “understand” their functions and inhabit them by mimicking expressions of emotion. In a landscape dominated by suspicion and fear around artificial intelligence (AI), filmmaker Valerio Jalongo (The Sense of Beauty, VdR 2017) offers a counterpoint. He takes us on a tour through scientific labs and artists’ studios, introducing those working most closely at the intersection of AI and neuroscience. By making this knowledge accessible, he invites us to engage with these technologies — and thus to understand them and take ownership over them. Once we move beyond the idea of AI as an autonomous, uncontrollable force, we begin to see that the responsibility for its future lies with us.
Mourad-Anis Moussa

Wider Than the Sky, 2025
A Class Story, 2017
The Sense of Beauty, 2017
The School Is Over, 2010
What Do You Know About Me, 2009
Upon My Skin, 2003
Torniamo a casa, 2000
Dreamcity, 1988