Buenavista

As developments in artificial intelligence rapidly advance, conceptions of human intelligence and agency are shaking and shifting. In place of objective and readily quantifiable human characteristics, there emerge intimations of other-than-human modes of awareness, coordination and intention. What if plants show purpose and altruism, or demonstrate a sense of kinship much like animals? What if technological advancements in robotics and computation wander astray from the imperatives of efficiency, speed and optimisation for which they were programmed? Might emerging intelligences amplify or, alternatively, resist the extractive tendencies that drive present environmental crisis? 

The computer animated film Buenavista conjures the environmental imagination of an alternative intelligence; one whose dreams are shaped by our own memories and fantasies. Spectacular scenes of nature flash across our screens and decorate our computer desktops: palm fringed beaches, ice sheets punctuated by lakes of turquoise meltwater, rippling sand dunes under starry skies. Forests are surveilled by cameras perched in treetops, on the watch for storms and wildfires. Climate models predict long-term changes in the biosphere. In a society saturated with digital images, descriptions and simulations, their work presents a vision of environmental yearning that transcends human embodiment. 

In the foreground of a panoramic landscape, an enigmatic figure swivels to a crouch on its robotic base. Under a bleak polar sky, its long brown hair blows gently in the wind. The form pulses rhythmically, as though breathing in sync with lavender clouds rolling over the horizon. An instantaneous shift transforms figure and ground simultaneously. A sharp inhalation gives way to the rising din of the sound installation I Am a River (2025). The figure stretches upward, whirling furiously as a flood of images flashes across the screen, transforming the landscape into a rapidly shifting collage of sand, ice, trees, and geological formations. As the being stills, standing tall amidst incoherent assemblages of land and sky, the transitions slow to a pace at which the elements can be resolved by the mind’s eye. Eventually, it begins to move again, bowing, twirling, and testing its ability to choreograph its own environs. Drawn from programming assets used in the composition of gaming environments, features such as icebergs, plants, rocks, and waves appear in a recombinant digital landscape. Buenavista parodies the manic inattention of scrolling and clicking through disjointed elements in search of the most “beautiful view.” In the form of an industrial Kuka robot, a recurrent protagonist from Troika’s oeuvre, an alternative intelligence proffers a mirror to our own environmental desires. To whom do these fantasies or memories belong? Does this robotic being build its own ecological niche? Who, and where, is the fairest of them all? — Dehlia Hannah

Buenavista was commissioned for the exhibition Buenavista curated by Dehlia Hannah at Schirn Kunsthalle, Frankfurt, 2025.