Al & Al: The Creator

AL and AL, The Creator, 2012 (Film still). Image Courtesy and copyright the artists

Last month, i went to the UK premiere of The Creator, a 45-minute movie by Al & Al commissioned by Cornerhouse for AND, the Abandon Normal Devices festival.

I entered the cinema wondering how much i’d enjoy a computer animated homage to a genius born exactly 100 years ago and i got out of the screening obsessed with everything Turing. I spent the weeks that followed reading everything i could about the ‘father of the computer’.

The short(-ish) film narrates and speculates on the last days of Alan Turing. I knew Turing as the genius who had successfully worked on cracking German ciphers at Bletchley Park during the WWII, as a man who has defined the basics of computer science, and developed the eponymous Turing test, which sets a standard for a machine to be called “intelligent”.

Turing’s name was therefore little more than synonymous with a landmark in the history of computer. I wasn’t aware of his personal life so i was shocked to see him portrayed as a broken man about to (maybe?) commit suicide. 2 years before his death, Turing was indeed found guilty of “gross indecency”, because of his sexual relationship with another man. Homosexual acts being illegal in the UK at that time, Turing was given a choice between imprisonment and chemical castration. He opted for hormonal treatment. The conviction also led to the removal of his security clearance, and barred him from continuing with his cryptographic consultancy for the British signals intelligence agency.

AL and AL, The Creator, 2012 (Film still). Image Courtesy and copyright the artists

As the directors write: Our film tells the legendary myth that thinking machines in the future will make about their creator’s life; an emotional story about how one of Britain’s greatest scientists ended up in a very dark place, because the country which he helped save from fascism, chemically castrated him because he was gay.

This is the background for a film that intertwines Turing’s dreams, a therapy session with his psychologist and a couple of intelligent machines looking for their father.

The focus on the session with the German therapist is particularly fascinating. As the film directors explained in the Q&A that followed the screening, Turing arrived in Manchester as an entirely rational and logical man and because his therapist, Dr Franz Greenbaum, was using Jungian psychology and encouraged Turing to write a dream diary, the mathematician was suddenly confronted with the irrational and the unconscious.

The film certainly explores this irrationality, suggesting that after all, being irrational is part of human intelligence.

The Creator is a clever and moving film that not only celebrates the tragic life of a man we owe so much to but also reminds us that Turing is still waiting for an official and posthumous pardon.

Cornerhouse uploaded the video of the Q&A with the film makers. Don’t miss it, their passion for Turing is contagious. Bonus! The irresistible accent of one of the artists.