Aug 23, 2023

Nikita Diakle's CG avatar teaches gymnastics.

“Backflip,” a short film by Russian-born, Germany-based animator Nikita Diakle, made its online debut in The New York Times.

In the cg short film, Diakle's own digital avatar tries to learn how to backflip. The film was screened at a number of major film festivals, including Annecy, Clermont-Ferrand, Toronto, and Ottawa.

In 2019, we previewed this short film and Dierker explained:

The film is based on Youtube's self-help culture. If you search for “how to do a backflip” or “how to improve your backflip” you will find videos typical of this culture. In this film, a digital avatar studies humans doing backflips on Youtube and tries to learn backflips through machine learning. The film is a reflection on human and computer ambition and where we stand today.

Dierker did not reveal at the time that the idea for the film came from his own personal attempts to actually do a backflip. Dierker attempted to perform this feat successfully, but eventually stubbed his toe, ending his career as a gymnast.

“I tried to shake it off, but the feeling shifted,” he recently told The New York Times.

“My confidence was gone.

With Backflip, Dierker tried another ambitious trick. Using machine learning, his avatar learns how to do backflips by watching videos of humans successfully performing them. Digital Nikita also learned from his own mistakes and trial and error.

The real Dierker explained: [AI is magical because it is so much like us, and terrifying because technology seems to have no ceiling. This short documentary is about ambition. It is about fear and the lack thereof. Control versus uncertainty, rationality versus emotion, and the desire for excellence. About technology, its acceleration, and the acceptance of failure. It is about letting go.