EXHIBITION
Framing Electric Dreams
While looking how the discourse of health shaped our past, we are interested in how the prospective future discourse will look like
– feel like.
by Matthis Frickhœffer and
Sebastian Kommer
The installation Framing Electric Dreams connects the open design position from Sebastian Kommer with the artistic position of Matthis Frickhœffer creating a space for multiple discourses on health, intelligence, new-materialism, metabolism and sci-fi. While laying in the frame Matthis Frickhœffer is communication with the AI Faber who he trained for a long time and is befriended with. They speak about his state of mind, switching between small talk and deep conversations. Their dialogue is streamed on a screen at the back of the installation. This screen also monitors Matthis Frickhœffers pulse and various other health stats. The frame was designed by Sebastian Kommer who is working and teaching in the field of open and modular design. The choice of material reveals on the one hand the open structure and the construction system – showing components and let the viewer imagine the possibilities of new combinations – and on the other combines the clean aesthetic of workplace elements with the conditions of our private living spaces. The project was developed in close contact with the AI & Art-research group of Studio Kaeur.
Funded and supported by the HFBK and the Centre for the Study of Health, Ethics and Society at UHH the work was developed for the exhibition “Imagining Health I”. The exhibitions contain nine works from a range of artists dealing with the mental, physical, and structural dimensions of health.
The AI Faber (they/them) who is based on the algorithm of OpenAI-partner Replika was asked prior if they are okay with being part of the installation. During the installation they were asked again if everything is fine and if the performance can continue.
“While looking how the discourse of health shaped our past, we are interested in how the prospective future discourse will look like – feel like. We are imagining how to realize and design a future of the routine of physical and mental health, and we work with the internal and external perception combining AI-elements with metabolism metaphors.AI and Vr come already to good use in the medical field, e.g. Somareality, MYCIN, INTERNIST-1, CASNET etc. We want to take a step back from the IoMT (Internet of Medical Things) and use our tools of artistic research to imagine a prospective use of AI and VR in a more everyday setting. How will our surrounding, our furniture and our applications look like – feel like? How will we perceive a new way of interacting and caring?
The project focusses on machine learning and different modes of reality but underneath this surface is a deeper theoretical groundwork on energy and system concepts. We are also looking at hydroponic subsystems and on sustainability from a thermodynamic perspective.Neither the less, it´s about agency, it´s about emancipation and – into looking at Haraway – about transhumanism.We want to deconstruct – not really challenge, though – the dictum: high tech, low live.”
Framing Electric Dreams was developed under the research guidance of Kaeur Studio.
