A machine interpretation
How we greet or say sorry
Exhibited at the INTIMACY 2018, Science Gallery, Dublin from 19.10.18 - 24.02.19.The exhibitions asks what human connection is made of. Speculative project exploring the themes on intimacy in surprising and unusual ways.
When we imagine the future, we imagine a world where technological innovation and artificial intelligence in particular is part of our world. We experience, enjoy, see and get a sense of meaning and our surroundings with the help of these technologies. Through this project, Promila wanted to elaborate on how machines and algorithms might look at our lives, and our ways of working. The piece shows how algorithmic logic might decipher and extrapolate a basic and common yet complex intimate moment like greeting someone, or apologising to someone.
Greeting or apologising to a person has contextual, cultural, relational and metaphorical values. It is common for us to try to understand and access the situation and accordingly figure out how to greet or apologise in a particular moment.
Imagine the following scenario: two individuals meet each other after a long time. They were old friends, but lost touch. They have uncountable stories and shared moments, and when they meet, it might lead to a whole-hearted hug. Now imagine the same scenario, but with a twist: some sort of misunderstanding forced the pair to not stay in touch. This small twist will completely change the way these two individuals will greet each other. There are complex emotions associated with these moments. However, when we try to decipher this simple interaction in a machine’s language, it might look like set of logic and rules; parameters considered and designed to guide how a machine might behave best in such intimate moments. The following work tries to showcase these set of rules and logic of machines' interpretation.