Topographies of
Artificial Desire (2023)
collaboration with Andy DiLallo
Topographies of Artificial Desire is an interactive audiovisual installation that delves into the evolving relationship between humans, artificial intelligence, and virtual spaces. We invite participants to wander the fractured space of this nonrepresentational virtual world, accompanied by a slightly-malfunctioning virtual friend. Participants can interact conversationally with this AI model shaped by a small dataset of love letters and casual dialogue. Fragments of the model’s training data and conversations from past participants appear throughout the world. The virtual terrain of Topographies is directly modified by user input and the ever-changing environment dissolves entirely if the participant does not type. The necessity of this interaction reflects the animating role which humans play in an increasingly automated world.
The video below is a reel combining footage from the first exhibition of the work and in-game footage recorded later.
The excerpt below is a live capture of Paulus’ interaction with the virtual friend. The text at the bottom of the screen is Paulus’ typing. The middle screen text is generated and spoken in real-time by this small chatbot trained on love letters.