The Neighbour (2026, draft)

Ongoing research at the Netherlands Film Academy

Note: This post is a draft!

This research begins with a feeling of physical desensitisation, a life stripped of spontaneity—my body grown passive, predictable, and legible to algorithmic surveillance. At a moment when algorithmic systems increasingly govern public space and impose normalcy on our bodies, this research project, The Neighbour, examines collective methods of resistance.  

It questions: what violence do algorithms embed in binary classifications, and how does it shape our body movements? Algorithms are designed to predict, identify, and reduce uncertainty. Can modes of walking become a site of inquiry for questioning and glitch-making in them?

To create an experiential encounter, the research reserves space for emergence through collective play and irrational writing as methods to move through and against algorithmic logic that puts our bodies in a predetermined order. Through this process, a fictional figure emerged: The Neighbour. With her as a dialogue partner, the project unfolds the politics of technology and machine surveillance through playful gestures of moving unpredictably together, as bodies that refuse to be legible. 

This research is situated within experimental cinema and critical technology practices. The project draws on operational imaging systems: LiDAR, depth mapping, machine-learning-trained body extraction, as methods for filmmaking. In doing so, it aims to disrupt the original purpose of these images that were developed for systematic operations, surveillance and datafication of bodies, into a sensorial and cinematic encounter.