that never existed
Introduction
Wish-fulfillment applies to situations in which some agent with a frustrated desire represents the world as he would like it to be—rather than as it actually is—and in this manner pacifies the desire. This substitution by the agent of his phantasy for a veridical view of what is going on with him and the external world has been thought by psychodynamic theorists to explain a wide range of phenomena: the content of dreams, psychiatric delusion, religious practices, etc…
A Wish represents a reaction to the present life of a human being, that aims for a change in some aspects of its existence.
In this wishing to be, to have, to achieve, to possess and to feel,
the individual lives his existence in his unsatisfactory reality, yearning for something that could become real (or not) at some point in his forthcoming future.
The manifestation of a wish involves in a certain way, having an essence, a substance, a spirit. When a human wishes, a manifest of his will radiates from his conscience to the outer void of his ghost as a prayer or necessity.
But can something so inherent to humanity as a wish happen out of humankind's boundaries?
To what extent desiring is a phenomenology that can exist without a real person suffering it?
Is a yearning man existence a condition sine qua non the wish may not, shall not exist?
Wishes of a Humanity that Never Existed deals with the representation of wishes of human beings that never happened, not in time, space or any dimension. A poetic interpretation of human spirits that never became real.
Theoretical Frame
In recent years, numerous attempts have been made to use computers to learn human psychology and to understand its links in the sphere of individual emotion and behaviour.
This may seem rather odd if one thinks of computers as devices that merely do arithmetic. Computers are widely believed today to be universal symbol-processing systems, and, if this is so, then they should be capable of analyzing complex processes carried out by humans. But those applying computers to the understanding of human emotions have imposed on themselves an unnecessary limitation that must be removed. If not this AI understanding will lead to cognitive computers that produce flat and lifeless interpretations of human manifestations.
AI systems interpreting human wishes may also develop value systems we can’t explain. AI is far better at predicting behaviour than the human mind. But what comes out when AI machines predict and generate human-like structures of emotion, of eagerness, of hope, … of existence?
Wishes of a Humanity that Never Existed deals with these cases. Using AI data processes, GANs and GPT2 to interpret human-related semantics wishes, the machine will convert these symbolic formulas into poetic pieces, created from its language. The art concept is generated by the machine itself and goes beyond the traditional communication phenomena to unpredictable literary forms. The project gives the AI machine special authorship to think about what is a human wish, his spiritual dimension and its poetic formulas. The machine imagines and talks by itself, and expresses its thoughts as messages that make us reflect about our existence when confronted with the artistic artefact of the project. In Wishes of an Humanity that Never Existed neural networks generate yearnings that do not exist per se but interpreted by code trees and processes.
But to properly understand the system the AI machine generates its human-like wishes with, we need to approach the backend process to understand how it will conceive the poetic formulas: the GANs and Neuronal Networks
Generative Adversarial Networks (GAN) and Neuronal Networks (NN)
as computational base of the project
A neural network is a series of algorithms that endeavours to recognize underlying relationships in a set of data through a process that mimics the way the human brain operates. In this sense, neural networks refer to systems of neurons, either organic or artificial in nature. Neural networks can adapt to changing input; so the network generates the best possible result without needing to redesign the output criteria.
A neural network works similarly to the human brain’s neural network. A “neuron” in a neural network is a mathematical function that collects and classifies information according to a specific architecture.
Generative Adversarial Networks (GANs) are a powerful class of neural networks that are used for unsupervised learning. They were developed and introduced by Ian J. Goodfellow in 2014. GANs are basically made up of a system of two competing neural network models which compete with each other and are able to analyze, capture and copy the variations within a dataset.
A thinking AI video sculpture
Using GANs to produce Neural Networks, we will compile from online sources or SM platforms (TBD) texts from #Iwish or #IwishIcould hashtags to create a database with human expressions.
Once created the database, the AI machine will analyze and generate different wishes messages, mimicking the human language and combining the compiled words, sentences and expressions credibly.
The generated wishes will be displayed in a sculpture created with different software and hardware components, where the audience can read and experiment these poetic forms in a multimedia experience.
The output could be considered as an „archive’s dream“, as a machine-lyric artwork. It will differ from what humans produce but trying to sound convincing and similar to a real human generated message. The network will generate wishes that sound like the real ones but have never existed, like coming from a parallel universe.
Aesthetics of the project: artistic execution
#technofossile #anthroposcene
In this concept, the AI-generated wishes will appear displayed in a screen as part of the AI video sculpture installation.
The concept is shown as a video-sculpture with different mineral materials and a screen, where the AI poetic texts will be shown. The sculpture has a monolithic structure, based on a sand bed, emerging with a basalt stone column formation. From this mineral-like structure, a screen is embedded in the centre of the group. All the structure is heavy, brutal, polymorphic and non-organic. Only the screen shows a technologic component, being the other materials elements of aesthetic primitivism that refer to the universe times where humankind did not exist.
Once the AI has generated the wishes, they will appear each 8-10 sec. This means that the visitor witnesses the thinking process of the AI machine in real-time. This makes the concept of the AI sculpture a live form, a progressing entity that shows its thought.
The sculpture can be surrounded in a 360º observation. It can be placed in its own space, in a unique room where it can get more atmospheric. For this purpose, specific soundtracks with audio landscapes and effects have been created. Other additional effects, as ground fog or smoke, can be used to create a kind of Sci-Fi aesthetic. This helps to create an expression of unreal, non-human, space like - non-existing aesthetics.
Software
This AI sculpture concept requires its software/app that implements GANs and NN to generate poetic texts.
Hardware
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Sand base - 200-300 kgs. approx.
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32” LCD screen (Pivot)
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Compaq Windows/Unix computer for AI data processing and generation
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Basalt stone-like structure, real or fiberglass reproduction
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Cables for the video installation
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Audio: speakers connected to audio output from the computer
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Fog/smoke machine for atmospheric effect (additional)
#AI #CodeArt #MediaArt #algorithm #videosculpture #GANs #NeuronalNetworks #coding
#programming #thinking #videoprojections #humanity #posthumanism #philosophy #ontology #wish #humanbeing #future #past #entelechy #language #processing #life #existance #art #sculpture #futurism #anthropocene #poetry #nonexistance #creation #technofossile #postinternetart
Wishes of a Humanity that Never Existed is a media sculpture based on Artificial Intelligence.
Using GANs, GPT2, and other data learning processes, the AI "thinks" and generates literary
expressions that resemble the emotional manifests of human feelings, yearning and wishes.
Based on different databases of poetry, literature, social media feeds and internet generated language, the AI imagines what a human (that never existed) could feel and desire in a non-existential place.
The AI substitutes the human conscience with its presence, expressing itself beyond
a traditional communication phenomenon with unpredictable literary forms: "I (the machine) wish”
The artwork transmits deep isolation and unreal feelings, expanding its audiovisual presence with different types of video projections and ambient audio landscapes in an atmospheric perception.