The world saw Skype translate different languages last year, but the popular online communication tool will be taken to another level at the opening weekend of this year's Berlin International Film Festival, which started on Thursday.
Ai Weiwei, an artist whose passport has been confiscated by the Chinese government, will use Skype to direct a film from Beijing, while a German colleague assists him with on-location support in the German capital.
Ai is one of the 10 directors who have been selected to contribute to the latest sequel of the "Cities of Love" series, and the new project has been promoted as evidence of his ongoing reputation as a global artist that persists even though he is confined to China.
The artist explained that the film segment is about his relationship with his son, Ai Lao, who celebrated his sixth birthday on Friday in Berlin, where he has been living since August of last year. Ai said in a phone interview: "The film is about my son . . . I cannot visit him."
In addition to a familial link, Ai is connected to Berlin in numerous ways, as he owns his own studio in the German city, and received an invitation for a post at the city's Akademie der Kunste ("Academy of Arts") that remains valid despite his geographical predicament. His festival shoot was described by the Guardian publication as a "love letter" to Berlin.
Since Ai's passport was confiscated--it was taken after he spent 81 days in detention in 2011--the vocal critic of the Chinese government has undertaken numerous remote projects. His San Francisco installation, "@Large: Ai Weiwei on Alcatraz prison," was overseen from Beijing, while a Serpentine pavilion was installed in London under his supervision, and Skype was used on both occasions.
Ai's next British show is a major exhibition at the Royal Academy in the second half of 2015.