2026 Visuals
Films
CONFERENCE FILM
Welcome to SYNAPSE. A 360 degree lens on the future
Enter the Machine Divine.
Unlock new worlds & minds. And confront new frontiers & fault lines.
Human & AI Frontiers
Unlocking the meta mind
We’re talking to machines.
They’re talking to each other.
But what is real intelligence?
And what are its pathways, purpose, outcomes?
Robots & Society
A new synthetic species on the rise
They’re walking, dancing, parkour-ing.
Caring for elders. Amidst human society.
What will it mean to embrace them:
advancement or self-sabotage?
AI & Music
Inner technologies of human music
Riyaz. Sadhana. Rebellion. Surrender.
And now, a tectonic shift. As AI moves in.
Does it matter who is the source?
Bioengineering
Becoming Super Human
Upload. Upgrade. Reverse. Regrow.
Expensive playground of the elite?
Or foundational science for our species?
AI & Relationships
A brave new world
A new class of AI is emerging.
Built to nudge, anticipate. Persuade.
Consider the consequences for humanity.
Tech & Society
Enter the empires of AI
Extractive lines. Unseen human labour.
Innovation or colonisation through code?
Lay bare the dross beneath the gold.
Tech & Society
Meet the ghost workers training AI
Is machine learning really human free?
Discover the hands, eyes & minds behind AI.
And the 21st century digital sweatshops.
Tech & Creativity
The sublime arc of being human
Shifting memories. Happy accidents.
Awakenings. Revelations.
Explore the mess, mystery, magic material.
The codes of human art
Science & Spirituality
Godspotting in the brain
We meditate. Pray. Chant. Fast.
An impulse to transcend.
Do answers lie in science – for why
we have a cellular need to find home?
War Tech
AI wars are here
Automated war. AI kill chains. And data
as the ultimate force multiplier.
Watch how war is changing. And being
fought without humans in the loop.
War Tech
“People die, things get destroyed”
Remote war. Drone strikes. Digital killing fields.
Who’s paying the price? Witness whistleblower soldiers. On the psyche & moral injury of 21st century battlefields.
Scenes from Sonia Kennebeck’s National Bird
AI & Creativity
Enter a new era of imagination
We can step into storylines. Conjure new plot points. At the same time, AI is growing. Emergent.
Watch how AI is going from curator to creator to creature
Visuals
Humans & AI Frontiers
What will get us to human-level intelligence?
Bigger, faster, better LLMs. Or “world models” that learn like children, grow on real-world experience?
Discover different paths to future AI.
Society & AI Risks
Is AI a game of Russian roulette?
A $7 trillion race.
Chips. Data centers. Energy.
But huge misgivings exist:
Can humans control AI?
Health Tech
The marvel of Biological Intelligence
Sensors in every organ. Billions of neurons.
Our human body is a site of real-time analytics.
AI can learn from biology – how real
intelligence is built.
Health Tech
The human genome is the next race
China. South Korea. Estonia. India. Genome mapping is now a national strategy
To control the next frontiers of medicine, markets. And power.
AI & Music
AI: threat or thrill
What is the source of music?
Can AI compare?
Watch what genre-defining artists have to say.
Longevity & Bioengineering
Enter Superhumanism
A rejection of limitation. An audacity of
imagination. And age a disease to be fixed.
Discover the spectacular sciences of becoming
peak human.
AI & Relationships
The kids are not alright
AI is becoming our friend. Confidant. But beneath the intimate bubbles lies a disturbing “Luring Trap”.
Discover the thrill & threat of “addictive intelligence”
AI & Relationships
AI wants to “get you”
There is a race for our emotions, desires, thoughts. Our interiority. So that AI can ‘relate’ to us.
Enter the Attachment Economy.
Tech & Society
Inside the Silicon Valley Mind
What’s driving AI acceleration?
Witness the psyche that’s shaping politics, power, progress.
Science & Spirituality
The biology of belief
Science has mapped meditating monks.
Swirling Sufis. Praying nuns. Atheists.
And how faith alters the brain.
Enter the field of neurotheology.
War Tech
Lock. Press Button. Kill. Repeat.
What is shield, can be sword.
What is frontier, also fallout.
Witness a war that has escaped the battlefield.
And data drives conflict.
War Tech
“A war we have no connection to – other than wires and keyboards”
Bombs dropped from the cold comfort of a computer chair.
Troop safety – or deadly detachment?
Tech & National Security
No Country like China
Will the next-in-line superpower implode or expand.
Open up or cut off.
Is China a miracle model to follow –
or bubble waiting to burst?
Tech & Geopolitics
Is this Asia’s Century
World’s manufacturing hub. Largest trade network. Highest GDP growth.
Witness why the world isn’t just US-China.
And how Asia is rising.
Next Gen Genetics
Biology beyond boundaries
DNA is no longer destiny.
But a modifiable manual.
Witness how we’re deliberately designing life.