Misa Skalskis

Sonzai Zone is a speculative fiction film on intimacy and loneliness after the normalization of ambient communication media. An unlikely encounter between Yún and Souvd takes place in a near-future where social interactions are largely based on the mediation of human presence, known as ‘Sonzai-kan’. Shifting between XR games, Immersion Arcades and spatial home displays, their insidiously orchestrated relationship escalates into extreme idealization. Meanwhile, Souvd’s ex-girlfriend Ntzumi launches into undercover investigation.

A musician on his way to meet a fellow fiddler, encounters two girls and is taken aback by their talks about afterlife. The musicians walk towards a village observing events, unable to discern phantasy from reality. Later, both men attend a funeral, where archaic rituals intertwine with the practice of marrying a dead girl to an ‘afterlife groom’.

"Vanity of vanities, says the Preacher, vanity of vanities! All is vanity." (Eccl. 1:2; 12:8) ‘Vanitas’ portrays four, unemployed characters in the future: a singer, a what-naut, a gamer and an office building. Revolving around the characters’ observations, it wonders about the transient and often meaningless seeming nature of human activity.

The video focuses on nipples as interfaces, milk as a political fluid, and mouths that sing and suckle other beings for nutrition and intimacy.

Toxoplasma Gondii lives and works inside a human body.