The Rock Speaks

A rock of cobalt channels a chorus of voices as it undertakes a trans-continental journey beginning in a mine in the Democratic Republic of Congo. This hybrid documentary uses generative artificial intelligence to visualize territories of extraction in areas that are usually understood as ‘resource-peripheries'. In tracing the passage(s) of this rare earth mineral required to produce technologies, the film grounds an immaterial future-focused AI in real-world sites of conflict, struggle and refusal. A relentless, warping flow of archival and artificially generated imagery echoes the ceaseless tide of data, physical resources and labour which drives the global technological order – overlapping, pixelated image-layering suggests the violent enmeshment of labour with technological systems.