Cezar Mocan

World Upstream is an inquiry into the aesthetics of leisure. Set in a fictional future which takes for granted the embodiment of artificial intelligence - and with it, the fulfilled techno-utopian promise of freedom through automation - World Upstream asks what remains once labor becomes obsolete.

The setting is a strange picnic. A cast of characters - including a wise poplar tree, a group of quadruplets, or a Dyson vacuum, all equipped with artificial minds -, become equal-parts shareholders in re-wilding an ageing piece of infrastructure: a hydroelectric dam on its path towards obsolescence.

World Upstream exists as a live simulation constructed in a game engine, and it presents as a film which edits itself in real time. The storytelling techniques of traditional cinema are replaced by emergent behaviors, as the conjunction of camera movement, character action and environment design leads to the unfolding of proto-narratives: snippets of action and intentionality which live somewhere between the screen and the viewer’s imagination.

The simulated nature of the work also means that the picnic never ends. As long as the GPU fans are spinning and the electricity is flowing, its characters are doomed to continue producing their performative labor of leisure.

The setting, a timeless gathering upstream of a once-majestic dam, points to the nostalgia of a bygone era; The dam is a relic of 20th-century nation building ambitions and progress, and a quiet nudge to ponder the future of today’s technological marvels. It invites reflection on the progression of technologies from the peak of their hype cycles towards latter stages of mass adoption and eventual obsolescence.

Media archaeologist Jussi Parikka proposes the concept of “zombie media”: an acknowledgement of the fact that electronic waste never fully disappears, but rather remains entangled with natural processes, as a “living dead”. The final part of technology’s life cycle thus becomes a moment of celebration: a time when technology can be reclaimed by communities and ecosystems.

Following this argument, the dam in World Upstream is a piece of “zombie infrastructure”, reclaimed by a slow, emergent, anti-productive process, led by a symbiosis between AI and “nature”.

The inhabitants of World Upstream, whether living beings, inanimate objects or elements of infrastructure are driven by an artificial intelligence system: a cognitive architecture rooted in five different desires each character tries to fulfill through their actions in the virtual environment.

This set of five desires - nostalgia, nesting, curiosity, cacophony and togetherness - transcends regular physiological needs, standing as a proposition to consider embodied artificially intelligent beings in a non-productive, post-capitalist context. Each AI’s umwelt is mediated by the landscape, rather than the server farm, driven by a sense of slowness and playfulness.

There is a certain naiveté in World Upstream: in the visual language, in the cognitive architecture behind each character. While it may seem like a utopian dream, it also stands as a question mark: is there space for being slow and playful in a world crying out for urgent solutions?

About the Artist

Cezar Mocan is a Lisbon-based artist and computer programmer. Through the use of narrative generative systems, he creates simulations that reveal technological observation as a form of worldmaking, while investigating technological lifecycles from hype through adoption, infrastructuralization and obsolescence. He is interested in the built infrastructures which enable our digital lives, as well as the ways in which their presence in the natural landscape affects our perception: the moments when utility becomes nostalgia. Drawing on media archaeology and art history, his research process traces the origins of our current thought patterns around (technological) progress. His work has been exhibited in shows and screenings at SOLO Contemporary, Yale University, Center for Contemporary Art Gdansk, Science Gallery London, Onassis ONX Studio, University of Maryland, Inter/Access Toronto, Athens Digital Art Festival. His real-time simulation work, Arcadia Inc. was recognized as a 2021 winner of the Lumen Prize in Art and Technology. In 2025 he was awarded the ABS Emerging Artist of the Year award and the SOLO AI Award.