Calming images that glow outward and want to be stroked.

The frame is made of satin acrylic glass with a thickness of 5mm.
Below it is an LED strip with warm white light, controlled by an Arduino, programmed to make the lights appear fluid. The colors are randomly chosen from a handpicked set from transition to transition, so that the animation never repeats.
The centerpiece is made of layered wood with aluminum foil in the middle, which detects changes in its magnetic field. This alters the brightness of the object.

A dancing puppet as a parody of over-interpretations of the capabilities of ‘artificial intelligence’.

Two servomotors, installed in a black box, move a marionette at unpredictable, timed intervals.
Stickers are affixed to the black box, representing the hype around the topic of ‘AI’: quotes from ‘The Matrix’, a Terminator and an Elon Musk head, Hal 9000, etc.

Part of the graduation exhibition of HBK Saar 20019 on the topic ‘Artificial Intelligence, Virtual Humanoids, and Related Misunderstandings’.
Some recipients mimicked the puppet’s movements and enjoyed the learning effect they experienced, while others were creeped out.

Ongoing research project in the fields of optical illusion and human-machine interaction. Virtual space / Interactive medium / Showcase for 3D objects.

There was a desire to create a convincing, human-like interaction with a machine to personify Gerkzeuk. The (pseudo-)holographic representation through the Pepper’s Ghost effect is one aspect of this; a crystal is also equipped with a camera, microphone, speaker, and microcomputer.
My reflections on simulating aspects of human appearance and interaction in the context of my work with artificial intelligence since 2015 had the greatest concrete intensity through its technical implementation in this subproject.

The head of a virtual humanoid as a persona of, and connected in the crystal to Gerkzeuk, seen at the exhibition ALLEZ ALLEZ

On the software side, experiments were conducted with:
OpenFace – Facial recognition. Deep-learning-based capability for the computer to recognize faces, distinguish them, assign names, and remember them.
Affdex – Expression recognition. Capability for the computer to interpret the viewer’s facial expressions based on the 7 basic emotions.
SpeechRecognition – Capability of speech recognition, experiments in the areas of keyword recognition and grammar analysis with the “Natural Language Toolkit”.
ChatterBot – Machine-learning-based dialogue system that allows a computer to learn the viewer’s/participant’s word choice and reproduce it in dialogue.
Watir Webdriver – Capability for the computer to independently use the internet, functioning as Google Translate to a text-to-speech program.
Unity – Game engine where the modules come together.

Further design ideas from the work process:

[pdf-embedder url=”https://victorgiers.com/wp/vg/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/pfeffergeist_17_01.pdf”]

A wall object made from work remnants (plexiglass cover, wooden board) and the electronics from Walter Giers’ work computer.
The software on the computer is capable of automatically downloading random current images from the internet, heavily distorting them, and then re-uploading them to the internet, where the newly created images are offered for sale, signed by the machine – not by me.
The machine is the (artificial) artist.

The object sold several images to an art collector from Saarbrücken. Since then, the question has arisen of how to design an exhibition with the device as an artist, and how the device can respond to the audience. For this purpose, the Pepper’s Ghost Crystals were created. The exhibition has not yet taken place.

Currently, the machine is broken due to transport conditions. I used this circumstance to exhibit the artificial artist as an artificial artificial artist. The artificial artist produced the art at the exhibition “ALLEZ ALLEZ” (Link) only artificially: The working process of the machine was projected onto the machine – the fans spin and the LEDs blink, but only for effect.

The object was personified by a (always sleeping) face, represented as a pseudohologram in a Pepper’s Ghost crystal (Link). The head could be viewed from six different perspectives in the room. The name of this artificial persona: “Iris” (Link to web version).

Functional diagram:

A MIDI controller in the form of a round cage made of lasers, equipped with 32 diodes and photoresistors, eight ultrasonic sensors, and surround sound.
When a laser beam is interrupted, a sound is produced, similar to plucking a string. Depending on the height at which a laser is “plucked”, the striking strength varies.
When one walks on the instrument, they are visibly elevated on a pedestal. The receiver for the light signal is located on the ceiling and can be hung at any height. The lasers are made visible by fog. The signals are sent from Arduino to the computer where they are processed with PureData.