Artificial Humours

Gabriel Abrantes

(Portugal 2016, 29:00 minutes)

Artificial Humours follows a young indigenous girl from Mato Grosso (Canarana and the Yawalapiti and Kamayura villages inside Xingu Indigenous Park in Brazil) to São Paulo, where she falls in love with a robot that also happens to be a stand-up comedian. This bizarre story conflates the anthropology of humour, indigenous communities, romance and artificial intelligence, while also contrasting notions of tradition and progress and pinpointing the truism that love – like beauty – is in the eye of the beholder.

Gabriel Abrantes

― Artist

Gabriel Abrantes (1984) lives and works in Lisbon (PT). He explores cinematographic language in his films and videos – he writes, directs, produces and occasionally also acts in them. His films confront historical, social and political themes through an investigation of post-colonial, gender and identity questions. Abrantes has regularly shown his work at museums such as the Tate Britain (UK), the Palais de Tokyo (FR), the MIT List Visual Arts Center (US), Museu Serralves (PT) and Kunst- Werke (DE). He has presented solo shows in museums and galleries and participated in group shows at ICA (UK), Lincoln Centre (US), Caixa Forum (ES), CAM – Gulbenkian (PT) among others. His films have been distinguished with a number of awards, including the Grand Prix at the Semaine de la Critique, the EFA prize at Berlinale, the Golden Leopard at Locarno Film Festival, and the EDP Young Artist Award.

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