Conversation Room

© 2019
 Robert Bosch GmbH, Wimmelforschung, Akademie Schloss Solitude

 

Ariel Bustamante, Conversation Room

WimmelResearch fellow Ariel Bustamante who took part in Platform 12 from March to May 2019 explains his project as follows: Conversation Room is an acoustically isolated space specially designed for voice that houses conversations between myself, a Bosch employee, and a computer. This computer is equipped with a simple AI algorithm that allows it to converse with the participants using its own, incomprehensible language.«

The starting point of the conversation was the impossibility of mutual, semiotic understanding between ourselves and the computer and the inability to engage in the common experiences of speaking, chatting, and straightforward communication. How this limitation was addressed relied on the participant’s acceptance or rejection that some alternative form of communication may still be possible.

From a place of rejection, the conversations circled through the individual reasons behind this communicative impossibility. Questions arose regarding our abilities to recognize agencies beyond our own anthropocentric expectations. Discussions focused on both our scientific and artistic identities, their stigmas, and the sensibilities we allow to develop within our own disciplines.

From a place of acceptance, different forms of aural communication were improvised; and moments of silence, long moments of listening and speculative glossolalia were practiced.