Gabriel Pereira

Future Movement Future – REJECTED

In a not too distant future, an anonymous researcher and their team applied for funding to develop their newest invention: a new algorithmic model for smart cameras which would allow to analyze the movement of cars at a previously unheard-of scale. This system was said to enable new forms of predictive capabilities to emerge: the algorithm would be able to, for example, predict the route drivers wanted to take but had not yet taken – including, for example, their occult inner desires for getting away with a secret lover.

A panel of academic reviewers from three different universities audited and reviewed the proposed system. All that is left are segments of the video-report resulting from this meeting, which became an urban legend among technology researchers.

The short film “Future Movement Future – REJECTED” is the story of a dystopian surveillance future that was barred by institutional refusal. It importantly reminds us about how total surveillance, the “almighty algorithmic eye,” may end up seeing-predicting much less than imagining-dreaming.

Out now on: Surveillance & Society journal, Special Issue on “Surveillance Futures”
Direct link to: Video // Research Statement

The film was also exhibited as part of the The Smartification of Everything Symposium and Exhibition “smART” at the uOttawa Gallery.

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Short film, 10'00", 2021.

Voices of the reviewers: Sarah Dillon (University of Cambridge), Cláudio Pereira (Federal University of Bahia), Rodrigo Ochigame (Leiden University)
Screenplay and direction: Bruno Moreschi & Gabriel Pereira
Image research: Pedro Gallego, Bruno Moreschi, Gabriel Pereira
Editing, animation and finalization: Pedro Gallego
Graphic design: Guilherne Falcão
Sound design: David Menezes


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