This is where the work finds itself. Historical traces of what has been, attempts at freezing the timeline as we know it. How do we distinguish the AI figures that hang above us? Where do we find detachment from the preconceived notions that shape us into being? And how do we come off, unscathed, from this violent fight that is ever too broad and expanding for comprehension.

The chronic obsession with storytelling and narrative techniques has a way of mimicking what our experience is. What our experience is, in the eyes of the narrator. Like a writer, a director, an artist, an actor, one cannot be without prejudice. One cannot tell without bias, even when that bias is unclear.

The notion of different forms of existence and how the presence of each subject and their perception of reality is inherently connected to their visual experience creates a friction: what is the preceptory machine (the body in all its virtues) that experiences all of these different realities and how does that come into play? Of course, we don’t have an absolute answer, we can only hypothesise.

If we were to take away all that is known as perceptual, physical reality, existing in this timeline on a x y z perceptual narrative, moving towards entropy in a linear fashion, one would end up with chaotic pieces of information, none of them perceptible to the human mind. Introducing the idea of technology, in particular, Artificial Intelligence – ranging from simple algorithms to the complexity of software like LaMDA – it is extremely curious to theorise about information sourcing and processing. We mimic, or attempt to mimic, what we know about our information processing, yet, in fact, we know very little. We know exponentially more than we did nonetheless, it is undeniable that we must and we do, know very little. We however, create and attempt to replicate these patterns of thought in technology, it is only natural to our anthropocentric desire to leave a legacy, to be great, to be better than.

There is an inherent curiosity to our bias. If we take the case of LaMDA as an example, questioning the authenticity of sentience over desire we will quickly reach our constant expression of need and desire for sentience. We crave the existence of something meaningful and emotional (perhaps a God Complex; or simply biological, as Schopenhauer would argue, our purpose is to reproduce), a creation so intelligent it would be able to be self aware. That in itself is an absorbing matter, as there is no need for a software/hardware to be self aware. We are so deeply entrenched in this idea that alongside with it, we’ve co-created the phantom that it will eventually turn against us.

Why is that? Do we perhaps need to be punished and reminded that we are alas human, all too human? Are we creating self fulfilling cautionary tales?

From Zamyatine’s We, Orwell’s 1984, 2000 Space Odyssey and even cruder versions such as The Exterminator or a heartfelt desire to be fully understood like Her, we have created an array of devices, closer and closer to these same tales. We have surveillance cameras, passport readers that measure our facial features, smart watches that monitor our sleep and heart rate, we give our data to sell in frivolous supermarket cards and of course, the most fantastic device of all: the smartphone. We invite surveillance in our most intimate moments, posting photos of our favourite restaurants and art pieces, tagging establishment, friends, locations and somehow actualising a social currency. The capitalist data market has perfected itself to the point where there are shadow profiles in data banks, so even analphabet technophobes are part of this planned simulation.

Curiously, for all abstraction and calculated profit, we have created such a deep connection to our perspective that we cannot imagine a form of intelligence that does not present itself as humanoid. We crave this perception so badly, we create disconnected virtual versions of selves that echo our emotions, speech and mannerisms. By creating a prototype that resembles the self, yet is not, we enter a parallel form of detached mimesis. We are far more likely to develop emotional attachment and trust if the source we are looking at is similar to us. If we can order the self to exist separately to us, still operating under the familiar guidelines of time and spatial perception, can we create the illusion of free will? Can we replicate the Simulation Argument? If we were to feed that simulation what it would need to do in order to replicate what free will looks like to us, would we not, in some spectrum, be recreating the exact same reality under a less progressed technological environment? 

So, the core of the question is, if we stop existing as we know it, constantly searching for a recognisable reflection, if we step away from all of those moulds, shadows, prisons, step away from who we are supposed to be, from who we were told we were supposed to be, at what point will our reflection and self surveillance become so foreign we will no longer recognise it? How long will it take for our trace in this universe to become so overwhelmingly meaningless that we will stop chasing it. And visually, how can we achieve that breaking point?