room with view
2020
Stained glass windows are not there to let light enter – they are there to direct your gaze.
'room with view' is a video installation examining the opacity of the artificially intelligent gaze. The meandering audio-visual work flows through the fields of system subjectivity, belief in technology and the production of knowledge by humans and machines. In a setting that evokes a sacred space, a triptych of screens toggles between footage of stained glass windows illuminating an AI’s Messiah; desktop scenes where information is gathered and synthesised; and glimpses of humans behind glass.
'room with view' incorporates and builds on scenes from the artist’s previous work, 'A(.I.) Messianic Window' (2017), a series of stained glass windows depicting a neural network’s interpretation of the ‘Messiah’. The work made in early 2017 dissects the process of human bias passing into AI systems; and was a direct response to the eruption of AI into mainstream discourse following a breakthrough in machine learning research.
Three years on, 'room with view' – whose symmetrical spatial arrangement is a nod to western architectures of worship –speculates upon the public experience of artificial intelligence in the current landscape: ingrained, omnipresent and obscured by banality. AI is an invisible film coating the surfaces of daily transactions: another semi permeable filter pushing forth its skewed world views.
The ideas are explored through the medium of desktop choreography and screencasting. The flow of frames and windows and screenscapes opens a contemplative space in which the subjectivity and intransparency of artificial intelligence is represented through the metaphors of glass, windows, desktops and screens.
Exhibited at the 2020 Daejeon Biennale, Daejeon, Korea
Photos by Studio Bow© Theresa Reimann-Dubbers 2014 - 2023