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“Asuka Lin deals in dichotomies with A.I. Mama: the dystopian world shot on nostalgia-inducing super 8, the gender fluid programmer working with binary absolutes, and the human figure desiring care from the incomprehensible machine. Yet the ultimate power of the film is to undermine and disassemble these oppositional forces. And by its climax, the boundaries between human and machine have collapsed into something indescribably hopeful.”
—
Japanese Avant-Garde Experimental Film Festival, London, Written by George Crosthwait
“Asuka Lin's A.I. Mama was a unique film with a punk vision of computational need, carried out in an analog space, full of wires and gear and hallucinations.”
— Big Muddy Film Festival, written by Juror Jason Livingston
In A.I. Mama’s ending, the machine merges with the human in a conflux rather than a
devourment. Both characters, or forces, have a mutual desire to meet each other. Within the
animation sequence, Abe’s metallic, chaotic sound design grows to a crescendo as we see
Kei embody the madness of the machine they created: an endless oscillation of the mother
birthing the child and the child birthing the mother, blurring the line between the creator and the creation. The modern cyborg expresses this sentiment of karmic influence.
— from "Finding Softness Within Cyberpunk", for SYMS Mag
“Above all else, [A.I. Mama] is a visual marvel, perhaps one of the most gorgeous films I’ve seen, both in relation to this list specifically and just in general. I would argue that no other film takes the risks that this one does, no other film is as effects-reliant, making it all the more impressive that Lin and their crew were able to pull it off.
I deeply enjoyed this short, to the point where I’m nervous that by discussing it, I’ll do it a disservice. Put very simply, it’s a fun and beautiful push against binary ideology, visualized through gorgeous stop-motion body horror. Again, we’re dealing with very minimal dialogue, so most of the story is told through visuals, and even if you don’t take away that intended anti-binary push, you’re still left with some beautiful animation and stunning filmmaking.”
— A Timeline of Transgender Horror 2: Electric Boogaloo (Essay article, written by Logan Ashley Kisner)
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