Famously, there are no scientific parameters to explain what consciousness is, or how it emerged: this is known as “the hard problem of consciousness.” But maybe this problem is only hard from humans’ point of view. All Is Water turns the tables and reflects on this problem from the perspective of non-human consciousness. Featuring a speculative text spoken and written by a computer, the film moves from meditations on the history and limits of science to an almost mystical exploration of fish consciousness.

All Is Water filmed in Corsica during the spawning period of the Chromis Chromis - a small species of ray-finned fish from the Eastern Atlantic and Mediterranean - when the scientists Anja Wegner and Alex Jordan set up an experiment to determine how architecture affects the social behavior of the fish. SUPERFLEX supplied three buoyant structures designed to appeal to underwater life. The local Chromis Chromis population congregated around these structures in great numbers in order to spawn.

As the film goes on, the narration expands its scope from this specific experiment to ask which methods—beyond the materialism of Western science—might be useful for reimagining the hard problem of consciousness. Combining scientific speculation, architectural futurism, and AI-generated philosophy, All Is Water suggests that consciousness is not a stable category, and that humans can potentially shift their perspective in order to tune in to the needs, preferences, and spiritual life of other species.

All is Water is supported by the Danish Arts Foundation.