This is the sentence / Francis Hunger
The 16 min video “This is the sentence” (2020) deals with the current development of artificial actors such as the voice assistants from Amazon and Apple. In front of a reddish billowing background, individual words are displayed. In the minds of readers, they are joined into sentences. A dialogue arises from these toneless statements, questions, insinuations, and invitations. The work looks into the ambivalence of smart home agents. It plays with forms of understanding or misunderstanding between humans and machines, questioning the seamless operation of user experiences by actors such Siri or Alexa. One statement in this video is: “What voice do you hear when reading this?” Whether human or computer program: the viewer gets the impression that someone is really talking. Am I being observed while I think I’m observing? Further, the question for the voice evokes a discussion of the embodiment of thought and of speaking. If the human viewers’ smart opposite has a voice, it would need a body to physically form that voice. How the smartness of smart appliances is created – as a phantasm – appears in another sequence, when the screen displays the statement “I can think what you think I can”. The specific tension of this work emerges because it can be immediately understood by humans, who while watching it are able to realize that the single displayed words actually form sentences with meaning over time. At the same time a machinic agent would only detect single words and not automatically recognize sentences or meaning.
Bio: Francis Hunger’s practice combines artistic research and media theory with the capabilities of narration through installations, radio plays and performances and internet-based art. Currently he is a researcher for the project Training The Archive at Hartware MedienKunstVerein, Dortmund, critically examining the use of AI, statistics and pattern recognition for art and curating. His Ph.D. at Bauhaus University Weimar develops a media archeological genealogy of database technology and database practices.
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