Dinner with The Invention of the Desert

An interview with Thibault Le texier, director of The Invention of the Desert

 A technical question: Is the official title The Invention of the Desert, or should we use the French title L’Invention du désert?

At first, there was only the English version of the film, The Invention of the Desert, with a voice-over in English by Liz Tolan. Then Christophe Gougeon, from the production company Atopic, agreed to post-produce the film, and we made a French version L’invention du désert with the voice of the actress Paola Comis. The French version is the one that will be shown at Clermont.

 Where did you get the idea for The Invention of the Desert ?

Well, it came to me when I saw an ad for the Aeroville mall not far from the Roissy airport. In the picture, everything is so artificial, so constructed, it was scary, even though it was meant to be the stuff that dreams are made of. I got interested in architecture videos when I was also conducting research on technology, augmented humanity, singularity. And I thought it would be interesting to put these two disciplines into dialogue – architecture and post-humanism – both of which are the product of the same instrumental logic: on the one hand, the instrumentalization of space, and on the other, the instrumentalization of the human.

 In your film, you tackle the subject of roboticizing tasks, whether in the form of digital assistance, such as computers and telephones, or the creation of machines specifically designed for a particular task, such as building cars. Humanity was built on slavery (the Classical ages of Antiquity and the Renaissance), serfdom (the Middle Ages) and economic exploitation (the Contemporary World). We sometimes see robots as the hope of the future, as if a consensual slave could ever be considered a hope. What do you think about this view?

I wouldn’t say that humanity is built upon slavery. Numerous peoples were ignorant of that form of servitude, at least until they met their future slave-drivers.

A common trait among all peoples, however, is technological intelligence. Technology is basically the use of a prosthesis to facilitate a task, and a robot is simply a very sophisticated prosthesis. Technology has always been the right-hand, so to speak, of human action, something that allowed us to gain in strength, precision, speed, comfort and intelligence.

The use of tools has permeated our way of doing and thinking, and even our physiognomy: the use of one technology favored the development of another, while stunting a third; the use of this or that tool sharpened some of our senses and favored certain behaviors at the expense of others. All of this is undeniable. But generally speaking, man has always remained in control of his tools.

And that is what has been changing for some time – you’re right about that – especially with the advent of digital technologies. I get the feeling that we’re increasingly becoming the slaves of our creations, be they cars, medicines, telephones or computers. A historian of technology used to say that it’s not the thermostat that determines the temperature of the house, but the person who sets the thermostat. Well, nowadays, the person who sets the thermostat often goes to a machine for advice, or to an expert – who very likely also got their information from a machine – rather than doing what their parents did, or thinking through the problem themselves. The film talks about that, about the moment when machines begin to coach us, manage us and govern us.

 Do you have a smartphone ? Do you use it as a GPS? A planner? As a measuring device for sports activities? As a personal aid? For instance with reminders not to smoke? What do you think of this world of ours that is not only “connected” to other humans through social networks, but also to job aids?

No, I don’t have a mobile phone, and I’m not an adept at the quantified self. But I agree completely with you: it’s harder and harder to live “naturally” – not in the sense of living “stark naked amidst nature”, but in the sense of living spontaneously, in an unmediated relationship with things and life, as our not-so-distant ancestors did. Without constantly worrying about organizing, controlling, rationalizing and optimizing ourselves; without forever worrying about being efficient, seductive and competent both at work and outside it.

The tyranny of the workplace touches all spheres of existence. It’s as if we no longer know how to put a baby to bed, what to eat, when to do things, where or why. We now need machines, advice and feedback in order to carry out the most trifling actions. Nothing is obvious or self-evident any longer. And that lends an ever greater importance to technology, which we rely upon more and more to know things for us and to do things for us. (I wrote a paper on this subject, if you’re interested: “Le management de soi”.)

 Do you think we can define the line between helpful assistance and the loss of our ability to find answers ourselves?

Of course, and the question of autonomy is one of the most important existential questions that concerns everyone in societies that are not deeply rooted in religion and tradition. How do we become free, given that we have no other choice?

Unfortunately, freedom increasingly resembles solitude. If social media have been successful, to my mind, it is precisely because they give us the illusion that we aren’t alone in front of our screens. We may live inside our computers, but others live there too, in fact just about everybody does. We are alone together in front of our screens.

Social media also have the advantage of giving us the illusion of control. Online, we feel as though we can organize and control our life more than in the real world. Which may in fact be the case. But is that a good enough reason to give up flesh and blood encounters?

 Have you ever played video games like The Sims, or had a Tamagotchi? Have you ever been attached to a fictional character or an object as if it were a familiar?

I got interested in Second Life for the purposes of this film, and I hope viewers will make the connection between that type of virtual world and the possible future that I’m depicting. But I’ve never used Tamagotchis; I find it a bit frightening to have an emotional relationship with something that is incapable of feeling anything at all.

In that regard, I’m aware that I am an endangered species, if the book by that eminent ethnographer from MIT, Sherry Turkle is to be believed (Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, 2011). She studied the relations that Americans of all ages have with Tamagotchis and robotic dolls, and she comes to some frightening conclusions, even though she herself is quite a technophile. In fact, her investigation shows that “people [are] willing to seriously consider robots not only as pets but as potential friends, confidants, and even romantic partners” (p. 9). Incresingly, therefore, we privilege artificial relationships that we can control over face to face relationships that by nature are uncontrollable.

That’s also true of the internet. The mere fact of spending more and more time online, whether in Second Life or on Facebook, makes us less and less capable of having flesh and blood relationships. That makes us grow accustomed to relationships that are essentially functional, utilitarian and measurable. The more we construct our existence on the basis of its digital reflection, the more we become roboticized. If we are increasingly able to automatize tasks, it is not only because machines think and act more and more like humans, but also because humans think and act more and more like machines.

 Do you have children? How important do you think it is for us to transmit our knowledge to the young human generations?

I have a son, and as I said earlier, the apparently trifling task of helping a child to grow up has become extremely complex. Education is plunging our societies into the depths of confusion above which impressive legions of experts of all types stand perched and waiting.

 
 People who were perhaps once parents and are no longer self-sufficient sometimes end their days abandoned and indifferent. What place do you think the very elderly have in our contemporary society?

In the past, elders fulfilled an essential social function: they preserved and transmitted knowledge. Now, those tasks are being automatized, and we treat the elderly as a burden. In a few decades, our mentalities have evolved to a staggering degree.

 What do you think of Wikipedia, the encyclopedia that can be modified by any common internet user?

I think very highly of it. For me, its model of disinterested sharing of knowledge is the most exciting thing the internet can produce. At the same time, I’m aware that Wikipedia erases the notion of authorship and crushes personal points of view in favor of an anonymous style that seeks the lowest common denominator and the politically correct.

 The Invention of the Desert is a French production. In your opinion, what does the French film industry offer that others don’t, as far as short films are concerned?

Actually, the film wasn’t “produced”, it was post-produced. The first version was made with only 40 €… To my mind, the best French short films are experimental films, or on the edges of experimentation. I think it’s important to continue producing these exploratory films, rather than reducing everything to three or four cinematic standards that end up being rather poor, both aesthetically, emotionally and intellectually.

Programme for viewing L’invention du désert: National Competition F9.

More info: It will be at the Rotterdam festival at the end of January.