RECURSION
LOGLINE: A lifetime of memories unexpectedly fracture into a surrealist nightmare, as a man's lucid dream state gives way to a disturbing truth lurking beyond the shadows of reality.
CONCEPT
“Recursion” follows a man reliving his memories from birth to old age. What begins as a nostalgic reflection through life's touchstone moments takes a disturbing turn when he questions the nature of his own reality.
As his doubt grows, his story transitions into surreal, darker imagery that deliberately disorients the audience. The familiar narrative gives way to abstract visuals and an increasingly distorted soundtrack.
In a shocking revelation, we discover the man exists only as a disembodied head suspended in a hibernation chamber, eternally cycling through an artificial memory loop designed to pacify him. This horrifying truth reveals his purpose: to serve as an organoid component in a living thinking machine.
The film concludes by returning to its opening birth imagery, completing a perfect cycle of recursion that reinforces the concept of infinity. The narrative deliberately leads viewers down an expected path before betraying their trust, challenging the notion that technological advancement is inherently beautiful or beneficial.
This GenAI experimental short film juxtaposes nostalgic warmth with existential horror, forcing us to confront unsettling questions about consciousness, memory, and the dark potential of our technological future.
GLITCH
What began as a standard production challenge evolved into the defining aspect of "Recursion." After generating 60% of my frames in Midjourney with unexpected ease, I worried the narrative wouldn't sustain viewer interest until the plot twist. A similar concept I discovered online about aging and death confirmed these fears. I was bored to tears.
My solution path took several turns—first reimagining the narration as AI contemplating the nature of artificial memory, then transforming that script into poetry. While the poetic approach felt promising, the true breakthrough came accidentally. When testing Artlist.io's Voiceover module with my complete script (something I hadn't tried in months), the system began to hallucinate—extending breaths, distorting syllables, and partially repeating phrases.
This technological glitch perfectly embodied the film's concept: a pacified subject being unsuccessfully fed artificial memories. The distorted, incomplete rendering of my script (ultimately using only 50% of my original text) reinforced the central theme that this technological implementation wasn't beautiful or successful—it simply did not work.
This happy accident transformed what might have been a conventional narrative into something genuinely unsettling and authentic to the story being told.
Statement
I've always been fascinated by moments of revelation in film—that breathtaking instant when viewers must reconsider everything they've witnessed through an entirely new lens. "Recursion" is my attempt to create such a moment.
The film's visual language draws heavily from David Lynch, whose deep-toned monochromatic aesthetic has profoundly influenced my work. Like Lynch, I wanted to create a world where mystery lurks in the shadows, where the familiar suddenly becomes uncanny.
This project is my humble homage to his filmmaking while exploring my own concerns about technology and consciousness.
By using AI tools to examine our relationship with technology, I hope to create something both beautiful and unsettling—a loop that might linger in your thoughts long after viewing.
PRODUCTION
All cinematic frames were generated in Midjourney v6.1. They were rendered in a distinctly cinematic 21:9 aspect ratio using prompts with my core personalization code, ensuring visual consistency throughout the experimental narrative. This code is the bedrock of my entire visual approach to virtually every project I generate as it is based on my work as a photographer across both analog and digital mediums.
KlingAI v1.6 provided beautiful naturalistic subject and camera movement that met my original intention as a director and cinematographer.
Artlist.io provided the score and AI voiceover: G-Yerro's "Horror in Your Eyes" was selected for its dark textural ambient qualities that escalate over the course of the short, and AI voice "Shadow" provided the monologue voice-over with its deep-toned delivery.
Topaz Labs Video AI was used to upscale all footage to 4K, and the final edit was completed in Adobe Premiere.
Thank you for taking the time to experience 'Recursion.' I hope you enjoyed my brief little fever-dream.
James D Phillips 2 Writer/Director/Producer