For decades, if not centuries, the potential for machines to move and work together, independently of man, has fascinated not only scientists and engineers, but also artists and writers.

Within just a few years, swarms of autonomous, unmanned mini-helicopters, equipped with cutting-edge sensing equipment, could take to the skies above us – on search and rescue missions, to monitor pollution, to assess flood damage and to help disaster relief efforts. Capable of collaborating, self-organising and reacting to events unfolding around them, these futuristic machines would not operate under direct human control.

The research team behind this work are tackling the many challenges involved in creating and controlling such extraordinary vehicles. 

From artificial intelligence to wireless networking and data fusion, their expertise is being applied across a whole array of intricate and demanding technical disciplines.

If We Never Meet Again is a film shot from two perspectives - a man’s and a machine’s. Focusing on the encounter of two men on a deserted road, the dual imagery invites multiple readings of a single scene. The work considers how media produced by machines might alter an audience’s perception of the cinematic. What might a ‘cinematography of devices’ produce when the subject is fictional?