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 spaces 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.
In a dust-shrouded village on the edge of a mine, the community is forcibly relocated. A crack threads its way up the walls of a classroom after nearby blasting activity. A convoy of trucks and containers carry one country’s wealth swiftly across borders to be processed and assembled in distant factories.
The film’s project is to trace the rock’s parallel journey – the history of colonialism, segregation and extractivism - which laid the template for the building of computational power and the deployment of artificial intelligence to prospect for mineral reserves, amass data, police borders and survey the worker’s smallest gesture. Each hand through which the rock passes as it is dug, washed, sorted, transported, processed and assembled contributes to building an intelligence that cannot be called artificial: the chorus of voices swells to a refrain of collective resistance.
This project won the SterKinekor EYE Award for ‘Best African Short Documentary’ at Encounters Film Festival 2025
Written and Directed by Francois Knoetze and Amy Louise Wilson
Contributing Research, voice-over and translations (Lingala & Swahili) by Joe-Yves Salankang Sa-Ngol
Voice Over by Aphiwe Livi
Sound design by Caydon van Eck
Production Assistance by Peacemore Patsika
An OpenDocs film
Produced by Lo-Def Fim Factory; Artefacto and Runway Studios
Artefacto Executive production: Jorge Caballero, Anna Giralt Gris & Gustavo León
2024
