The English scientist Alan Turing, inventor of the first machine that elaborated the instructions of a programming language (the first computer prototype), probably would have never figured out that his life would have been told in a film like the one made by the californian Peter Brinson. 'No Animals Were Hurt' is not exactly what you can expect from a commemorative documentary, but rather an investigation on the potential of the new media narrative, as it is similarly realized in the 'Soft Cinema' project by Lev Manovich. In the Brinson's film the pictures are streaming too fast, while the sound's speed is correct. Nevertheless, every new visitor's hit the pictures flow slow down a bit, till they reach an exact number of visitors. Then audio e video flow at the same speed. The length is also calculated on the number of visitors, adding a new frame every fifty visitors, so to see the complete story five hundred visitors are needed. Another interesting aspect of the project is the emphasis on the unique visitor concept: a computer (and its IP) will produce an influence on the movie play only once and never again. So Brinson is applying to his narrative the same logic of the internet traffic reports, and implicitly he encourages users to involve as many people as possible, in order to unveil the mysterious end of the controversial Turing's story.
Vito Campanelli