Mimir's Well (2024)
Written and Produced by Patrick Taylor
Co-Directed by Kakia Gkoudina
Director of Photography - Henry Moonrod
Production Engineer - Lauren Spiegel
Sound Design and Composition - Kakia Gkoudina
What is the weight of a digital soul? and what would you give in exchange for a glimpse of infinity? The Norse Poetic Edda tells of the god Odin's many sacrifices in exchange for knowledge, the gifts he passed on to humanity. On one occasion Odin gave his right eye in exchange for a drink from the well of infinite knowledge, a deal brokered by Mimir, the god of wisdom. In another event the immortal thought to sacrifice his body; throwing himself upon his spear and hanging himself from the world tree Yggdrasil, he hung for 9 days. Screaming in agony, he picked up the ancient runes and began to read. As we enter the age of the digital afterlife, the knowledge we gain is paid for in exchange with the ashes of our physical world. Souls will not be weighed with a feather or a pound of flesh, but with the carbon that our digital lives produce, a terminal physical byproduct of the ghost world of the internet. This film is a ritual. Burnt offerings, a symbolic dedication to the destruction of all things physical, are scattered beneath an inverted tree's branches. Ash is the fruit born from this barren effigy, inverted, its roots taking sustenance from the clouds, vessel and conduit for an endless ocean of data. When our ritual is done, what waits for us? In a world where life is fleeting and data is immortal, what manner of deity looks favorably upon our sacrifice?
