All Light, Everywhere

Big data and new technologies have expanded the political arena to include all walks of life. In his investigative and kaleidoscopic but razor-sharp and (thought-)provoking high tech essay, the American filmmaker Theo Anthony looks at how visibility, knowledge and power are connected today. From Axon (the arms company behind the Taser electroshock weapon) to an angry citizens’ meeting about surveillance among the black population of Anthony’s native Baltimore, dizzying patterns start forming. Patterns that reach back in history and into a near future, where AI is enforcing the discipline. The question is whether the new technologies are more objective and fair, or if they just give a new lease of life to the same old (racial) prejudices in a world where crime and punishment are variables in an algorithm. Theo Anthony operates in the field between investigative documentarism and visual art, and All Light, Everywhere is a bright example of a mastermind in action.