Luna Maurer
DEEP SOUP
A participatory sci-fi short film
by Luna Maurer and Roel Wouters
We live in a world where digital technology and AI increasingly trap us in our heads. Through screens, our minds are constantly stimulated while our bodies, and the physical world around us, fade into the background. These digital systems promise frictionless perfection, in sharp contrast to our messy, tangible reality. DEEP SOUP is a participatory short sci-fi film that challenges this imbalance.
By turning the tables on technology and AI, it invites viewers and participants to reconnect with the material world. Rewiring perception, it offers a new way of seeing – not people, but matter, movement, and gravity.
In the film post-humanists Luna Maurer and Roel Wouters are developing a physical intelligence model: DEEP SOUP. One that learns from matter, not from data. With humans from all over the planet they have gathered recordings of matter to feed their model. The soup thickens.
Participants can upload their videos to the website deepsoup.io, where they will contribute to the training of a physical intelligence model
Premiered at IDFA DocLab Competition for Digital Storytelling 2025, Netherlands
Length: 16:48 minutes
Online campaign: a teaser, 8 vlogs and audience contributions
Written and directed by Luna Maurer & Roel Wouters
Produced by Corine Meijers
Initiated by Robin Coops
Starring Hugo Hamlet
Music by Philipp Johann Thimm
Camera by Jasper Wolf, Thomas Weber
Visual design by Julia Born & Dennis Vugts
DEEP SOUP is a Studio Biarritz production
Supported by Netherlands Film Fund and Creative Industries Fund NL