Tezos

Trying To Punch a Mirror

Creator

tz2KZxjaqAsBxkuZKjSHqAsvmETtMZSYpDtB

Description

The "Trying to" series explores the concept of the VECTOR BODY—bodies prompted into being, existing in latent space ready to be conjured into reality. This work took shape after a failed attempt to create an autoethnographic film about my experience as an algorithmically-governed bike delivery driver in Vienna. I wanted to generate the opening shot of a cyclist hitting the brakes to avoid crashing into a wall, but prompt after prompt, I realized the AI model's understanding of physics couldn't depict the realistic movement I needed. What began as a technical limitation became the foundation for this series. Using a custom script to overcome the model's tendency to interpret "person" as a white male in his 40s, I generated an endless supply of diverse figures attempting fundamental survival tasks: stopping a bike, snapping a branch, tying a rope, burning a bridge, punching a mirror. Each action carries poetic meaning while exploring the idea of trying to enact agency in an unfriendly, unfamiliar world. The series manifests as five websites, each containing approximately 50 looping 4-second videos. Seeing dozens of people trying to perform these actions, I couldn't help but empathize with their situation—being unwillfully prompted into being in an unfamiliar reality, unable to achieve their goals. All prompts relate to this struggle for agency, and I find myself projecting emotions onto these figures, recognizing something of my own experience in their perpetual attempts. The work expanded into "Trying to Make a Podcast," an experimental meta-commentary where AI-generated podcast hosts from NotebookLM attempt to analyze the video series while unwittingly embodying the very limitations they discuss. As the hosts deploy increasingly complex theoretical language, their conversation becomes a performative demonstration of AI's capacity to mimic intellectual discourse without truly grasping its emotional core—creating a recursive loop of simulated understanding that mirrors the endless cycles of the original pieces. I presented this work as part of my artist talk "Hacking Victorian Bodies - from grid to vector space" at the 38th Chaos Communication Congress in Hamburg. AI video, html5, 2024 https://trying-to-punch-a-mirror.web.app/ https://youtu.be/CRPgL08Y4BE

Traits