Personal Dialogues between maker, material, process and form.
This week we learnt about material transformation and how it manifests itself in manual and digital processes. Experiences made possible by various processes of making.
The video shown in class about the technological medium called “Alexis” is what I’m focusing on right now. Alexis is a computerised human voice that when asked anything always has an answer, she is an AI aka Artificial Intelligence if you want to get super fancy with the words. Almost exactly like Siri except Alexis doesn’t need to be turned off or on she or they I suppose I should say, is constantly aware just saying their name is enough to activate it.
In class we discussed the theory that humans get attached to this mechanical thing, it has no personality, dreams or personality. It exists solely to be used by us like all technology, yet with the voice it takes on a persona of sorts. My friend joked that it was like an episode of “My Strange Addiction” but I feel that’s actually a good point.
Human beings have naturally addictive personalities, we find things to get attached to and many people in today’s times search for something to cling to that won’t hurt them as crazy as that sounds. Ted talked about how some people would even go as far as sleeping with Alexis near them or in bed with them, this addiction is no different to any of the ones on that show.
This can relate to that key idea I mentioned earlier, the personal dialogue between maker, material, process and form. People becoming addicted to technology and finding almost human levels of companionship for it at this point doesn’t even seem that strange anymore.
People everyday have trouble living without being connected to some form of technology, mentioning quickly a topic I discussed in a previous blog post. The ability to dip in and out and the idea that we are never really offline, so in a way is it really a surprise when we get attached so much to technology? At least it isn’t something weirder.
(From YouTube) An example of someones addiction being taken to a new level.
Studio A 