Aurora Digitalis is a screening and teaching format dedicated to time-based digital films that create alternative worlds with game engines, among other tools, and renegotiate these worlds in their identities, virtual bodies and socio-economic structures. Through speculative narrative forms, the understanding of game mechanics and avatars, they question the ideological foundations of digital technologies and open up critical perspectives on power structures and future concepts. The screening includes films from international positions as well as HGB alumni.
Aurora Digitalis II – On (Free) Will – Characters, Movement, and Dancing critically examines how digital environments shape bodily autonomy, identity, and free will through movement and dance. It explores the impact of predictive algorithms, market-driven technologies, and game mechanics on agency and decision-making. From speculative narratives of algorithmic capitalism to moments where normative game environments are interrupted by queer avatar dances, the featured works expose how virtual spaces fragment individual freedom and reinforce systemic control over bodies and identities—while also opening up spaces for resistance, disruption, and the reclaiming of agency in increasingly data-driven realities.
Films by:
- 2girls1comp
- Federica Di Pietrantonio
- Harun Farocki
- Juan Covelli
- Nina Davies
Aurora Digitalis is an extension of the weekly HGB cinema Aurora. Initiated as part of (Un)Learning Digitalities with Clemens von Wedemeyer (Expanded Cinema class) and Eliza Goldox (Artistic Associate) of the Academy of Fine Arts Leipzig in cooperation with the GfZK.
The project is co-financed by the European Union and co-funded by tax revenues based on the budget approved by the Saxon State Parliament.