Democratizing Synthiola

Animated film about authenticity and consent in a world of AI generative media.

2023-2024

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

In Prot's pursuit of asking their crush out, they create a synthetic clone of her, but start having feelings for it instead...

Featuring the Shoggoth, a meme by TetraspaceWest inspired by the similarities between the Lovecraftian creature and Large Language Models, and Synthiola, the creator’s synthetic AI persona.

Jiezl V. Chua as Iola

Nina Nikolic as Prot

Reeko Brooks as Sam

 

ElevenLabs + Nina, Jiezl and Reeko’s synthesized voice as Synths

 
 
 
 
 
 

Created through a mix of frame-by-frame 2D animation, live-action acting and generative visuals powered by Stable Diffusion, AnimateDiff and Gen-3 Alpha.

 
 

In addition to the behind the scenes, you can watch the NO AI and ONLY AI version of the film, giving you more insight on the process.

 

NO AI

ONLY AI

 
 

Featured on
Animation Magazine


Selected at

Chroma Art Film Festival, Miami, US

KOOORTS Short Film Festival, Enschede, NL


 
 
 

Project funded by Nordmedia and Filmbüro Bremen.

About the creator

Fabian Mosele is an animator who’s been exploring the intersection between generative ML models and storytelling since 2020. In pursuit of discovering what it’s like to synthesize someone else, they created Synthiola, Fabian’s synthetic self. Firstly being a way to feel what repercussion it has on one own identity, Synthiola became integral part of the story for this film and Fabian’s online alter ego.

Fabian in their workspace, photo by Hsun Hsiang Hsu