鈥淐an machines think? Are there imaginable digital computers which would do well in the imitation game?鈥 asked Alan Turing in his landmark paper, Computing Machinery and Intelligence. Turing鈥檚 study was published in 1950, but the question whether machines can successfully imitate human behaviour still resonates today. Eight artists delve into our fascination with artificial intelligence and man/machine relationships in The Imitation Game at the Manchester Art Gallery this year.
Of all the works on display, Tove Kjellmark鈥檚 Talk (2015) is the most philosophical. It features two robot skeletons sitting in a small, dimly lit room with red drapes. Encountering these characters is like stumbling into someone鈥檚 living room amid a private chat. The androids ruminate on the nature of human consciousness, emphasising the gravity of their words with life-like gesticulations. If interrupted, they politely ask audience to shush before recommencing. Lynn Hershman Leeson鈥檚 Agent Ruby (1999-2002), an online artificially intelligent software, similarly interacts with gallery visitors 鈥 when a question is typed into the computer, the 鈥榗hat bot鈥 replies by searching the internet for suitable words and phrases to construct a realistic conversation.
An exhibition highlight is James Capper鈥檚 TELESTEP (2015), a walking sculpture resembling a long-legged spider built from industrial machinery. Whereas the other robotic figures on display are designed to look human or at least comfortingly familiar, the sharply angular hydraulic figures of Capper鈥檚 Earth Marking Division series appear threatening, and they imitate the way humans use machines to scrape, grate and pulverise the urban landscape through oil drilling, road digging and construction. In blurring the line between human and computer, TELESTEP is not as effective as Paul Granjon鈥檚 Am I Robot (2016), a robot which roams the gallery and interacts with visitors, but it鈥檚 appearance is nevertheless startling.听 Capper will also operate the mobile sculpture live in the gallery on advertised dates, leaving marks on the gallery floor through the exhibition.
Two artists focus on the relationship between technology and romantic intimacy. Mari Velonaki鈥檚 Fish-Bird (2003-present) is a pair of robots in the form of two unoccupied wheelchairs, which stroll around an enclosed gallery space, like two lost critters. The two robots, named Fish and Bird, are in love but they struggle to communicate with each other. Using small thermal printers, each device prints little notes for their object of desire, but the messages fall to the ground, leaving sprinkles of litter all over the floor. 听Visitors can enter the melancholy installation and are allowed to pocket the small love letters.
Inspired by an historic incident at the University of Manchester鈥檚 computing department, David Link鈥檚 LoveLetters_1.0 (2009) installation is a selection of love letters displayed on a blackboard. What makes them unusual is that these romantic notes were generated by a computer. Link鈥檚 software emulates an earlier model devised by Christopher Strachey, a peer of Alan Turing. Strachey鈥檚 own programme was built for the Ferranti Mark I computer, which produced numerous billet-doux that were scattered all over the university鈥檚 department notice board between August 1953 and May 1954. Using phrases like 鈥淵ou are my lovable desire鈥, 鈥渕y breathless rapture鈥 and 鈥測ours anxiously鈥, the memos are unnervingly impassioned yet coldly efficient.
Yu-Chen Wang鈥檚 Heart to Heart (2015-6) and Ed Atkins鈥 Performance Capture (2015-6) are the two films showcased at their gallery. Wang鈥檚 film presents on three screens, but not always simultaneously, a whimsical but puzzling sci-fi tale about machines inside the Museum of Science and Industry, and how they talk and interact with each other. Atkins鈥 work is based on an earlier project from last year鈥檚 Manchester International Festival in which 120 festival participants were filmed and digitally altered onto a computer. Performance Capture shows a floating head and forearms, which delivers an abstract monologue through different voices – as the dense script continues, the CGI avatar continues to deteriorate as if aging at an accelerated pace. If the other works were about machines imitating humanity, this is about humanity being 鈥榗aptured鈥 by technology; of how hundreds are homogenised, streamlined and disembodied until bereft of individuality.
The Imitation Game, until 5 June 2016, Manchester Art Gallery, Mosley Street, Manchester, M2 3JL. For more information, visit www.manchesterartgallery.org
Credits:
1. Installation photographs of The Imitation Game (2016) .听Courtesy of Manchester Art Gallery.
