So what of my actual work I displayed in the show? My final piece was a seemingly rather simple one, and to a certain extent it was, but it was another rather time-consuming project. Many of my projects deal in some way with obsession, so in that sense it was similar, however the logistical nature of the project was not a concern or initially apparent to an observer. My final piece was an iPod held in an iPod holder placed atop a plinth. The screen displayed 1,110 words, each scrolling by one word at a time, with the words acting not as a story, but rather as a crude artificial intelligence.
Kinda like an upside down HAL 9000.
My piece was intended to interact with the viewer whilst at the same time not doing, but rather than frustrating them it frustrated the piece itself – in this case my iPod. It begins by saying hello and then begins asking the observer general questions about their well-being, their surroundings, their likes and dislikes etc. From here the iPod would then begin to become frustrated with the lack of interaction on the part of the observer, its attempts get more and more desperate until eventually it crashes (a fake crash that I created).
There's also some dogshit music in there (sorry, Vengaboys).
It begins to fail, acting erratically before eventually crashing and then rebooting, at which point the entire ten-minute process begins again. I intended this to be some kind of small technological Sisyphus story that could unravel before your eyes. I was told of two potential downfalls to this project by my peers but both, to me, were actually part of the piece and interesting in their own way. The first was that at ten minutes nobody would stay to witness the entire thing, and people who walk in halfway through may not understand what is happening. This was not a problem to me, but rather a positive aspect to the work. I found the idea that the iPod continues to try and form a friendship regardless of its surroundings rather poignant
The idea of my iPod alone in the dark at night after the exhibition had closed, still failing to form a connection but still attempting to was very interesting to me. The perseverance of this psuedo-artificial intelligence gave it a quality that I found endearing. It would never succeed, but it would never stop trying. The second potential pitfall I was warned about was, again, another positive; the idea that people would come and read a few words before moving on. I found this interesting again because these people who simply ignore it are why it ultimately fails; they are disinterested, not willing to give it their time and so move on to the next piece. This was intentional. Had I made the cycle two or three minutes long it would be possible for everybody to stay for the entire duration of the cycle, which makes the failure of the iPod confusing since everybody is willing to give it their time and attention. Had it been shorter it would seem like a simple glitch and failure on the part of the iPod, but at ten minutes it can be ignored, and so you can prescribe emotions to the piece. The idea that it feels isolated, alone and ignored.
It also stole 77million PSN users' credit card information.
I was also warned that some people might think it was simply part of the exhibition simply designed to greet people. This was never a concern for me at all. It was not placed by the entrance, it had a description next to it and anybody who spent more than five seconds reading the text would understand that it was not simply an alternate method of welcoming people to the exhibition.
Overall I feel my piece was very successful. I felt it was a good idea and well executed. It received quite a bit attention on the opening night and the response from my peers was positive as well as my tutors. One person remarked that it was interesting simply for being so different. That when walking around the exhibition it was almost like a holiday from the traditional and expected work you were seeing. This was probably the biggest compliment and made me feel very happy with the idea. The piece itself may have seemed simple to make, but creating it involved creating 1,110 individual audio files and renaming every single one individually, whilst also setting the time of each file so the (one-sided) conversation would flow naturally (leaving pauses on questions for example so they had time to be absorbed by the viewer).
My work often involves humour and obsession, with this project having both the obsessive, time-consuming nature of its creation and the humour element found within the words. The themes I wanted to instill into this piece included intelligence, humanity, isolation, frustration, despondency and perseverance, and while no one viewer may have gotten all of these pieces of the puzzle I do believe I succeeded in exploring them all.
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