Boolean vivarium

In a remote location, Léo and Nicolas are creating “Vivarium”, a video game which shows the decay of a house strangely reminiscent of their own. As they navigate the challenging creative process, tensions rise and the duo is put to the test.

While the principle of the game he has created is wonderfully eccentric, by filming the process leading to its creation, Nicolas Bailleul raises the absurd to its square. Algorithmically growing mould into his game may be impossible, but in his film, he can at least cultivate the poetry of code. The meticulous work of the two programmers propels us into a universe where the stakes are powerfully metaphorical: how can one make the destruction of a world as magnificent and playful as possible? The task is no easy matter. Like reptiles in a bowl, moving only their right hand and eyes, Léo and Nicolas are searching fervidly for the best parameters. This teamwork produces a few punchlines in between sense and nonsense (“We do dust, mould, maggots, and leave it at that?”), and deliciously eccentric fantasies, such as watching a cigarette butt turning brown under the repeated passages of sunbeams. As the protagonists of this one-location film grow painfully aware of their body, the time comes to install the corpse that is destined to rot in their digital décor—the elephant in the room that had not been mentioned before. In this mortal perspective, we more clearly understand their tenacity to fine-tune their pixelated creature. A cappella voices creating timeless harmonies are there to remind us: on either side of the history of humankind, the advantage of mortality is that it constantly drives us to create. 

Olivia Cooper-Hadjian