I once read someone asked ChatGPT, “If you were human, what would you do?” The answer: crying. Feel the breeze. Fall in love. Have a body. I laughed, but I was also touched. It’s both hilarious and tragic to see a machine imagining itself to be a human. And at that time, I came to a realization: how fortunate I am to be able to feel. How beautiful it is to be a being blessed with emotion.
It is similar to The New Ruins (Manuel Embalse, 2024), which captures the same feeling. It is both strange and touching, yet at the same time, it reminds us of the value of experience and emotions. The documentary follows the journey of Embalse, an Argentine artist who has been documenting electronic waste in Buenos Aires since 2013. The collected waste ranges from cracked monitors, tangled wiring, to forgotten computers.
For years, he treated them not as a waste, but as relics: the fragments of a digital life that once held meaning for someone. He numbered each find, recorded it, and made it into an alternative history archive: a small museum of the old technology we’ve left behind. In one of his curatorial notes, the documentary is considered to be another form of post-cinema reflection: an attempt to reread the relationship between images, memories, and the technological debris that keeps gathering in the shadows beyond the screen. For me, The New Ruins (2024) illustrates that the practice of cinema has shifted. It is no longer merely an act of watching, but being a part of the material ecology of technology itself. This documentary highlights how image and sound continue to persist in the form of residue (e-waste, digital archives, and data fragments) that signal the life of cinema beyond the screen. In so doing, the “ruins” become a new space for cinema to live and be remembered.
Instead of viewing e-waste as a symbol of destruction, Embalse views it with empathy. Through his gentle perspective, he invites us to look at how humans and technology interact through an emotional perspective: memories, loss, and efforts to stay connected. And I can feel the beauty of this documentary. It arises not from the technology itself, but from the way humans see it, where curiosity, sorrow, and a quiet tenderness still linger on broken electronic remains. It’s not about the time that is ticking, but it is more about how humans rediscover intimacy in unexpected places. It’s about listening to a slow buzzing world: one that reminds us to keep being aware, even in the midst of digital ruins.
And when the screen finally fades to black, we begin to realize: technology was made to hold memory, to capture moments, and to keep traces. But what makes everything “alive” is the human presence: the feelings, attention, and meaning we attach to it. Thank you, Embalse. It is because through documentaries about inanimate objects, you remind me of the most lifelike thing: human emotion. (Tirza Kanya) (Ed. Vanis/Trans. Shafira Rahmasari)
Film Details
The New Ruins (Las ruinas nuevas)
Manuel Embalse | 89 min | 2024 | Argentina
Official Selection for Perspektif
Festival Film Dokumenter 2025
