Interactive installation, table, gong, drawing machine, paper, electronics
varying dimensions
A drawing machine is creating images on top of a table. The visitors are welcome to place empty black paper sheets in front of the machine. They can request a short, haiku-like prophecy by pressing a button on the table. These wisdoms are based on different artificial natural language processing (NLP) methods. The texts are generated by code, using stochastic and probabilistic methods. The texts are combined with generative, visual shapes. The audience can keep these pieces for themselves.
We are witnessing the unfolding nostalgia towards the future, but since we have not experienced the future yet, we engage in it in the form of conjectures and speculations, predictions, oracles, which also determine our daily decisions. The Future Meme Device is a machine that creates imaginary scenarios for the visitor in the form of text messages. The texts are generated by the learning system based on the works of various magic realism writers, where the language corpus is based on artefacts like invisible cities, perpetual forking paths, infinite labyrinths by Italo Calvino, Jorge Luis Borghes and others. The system programmatically combines the patterns of existing texts with coincidences and unexpected contingencies. If words are placed next to each other that have a new meaning in a given ensemble, does it develop during the play of a pure machine logic, or does a more casual, active recipient intention prevail?
