The installation Don't Answer Be Happy creates an
interactive experience in which everything revolves around the personal
smartphone. Engrossed in a conversation between their own personal
smartphone and the surrounding artificial intelligence, visitors
are compelled to take a stand. Confrontations with the ambivalence
of digital reality arise, and evasion is not possible. The experienced
space reflects upon the digital colonization regarding people and
regions of this world outside of global tech hotspots.
Featured at Mapping Festival 2023
Don't Answer Be Happy was exhibited at the Mapping Festival 2023 in Geneva. For this reason, RTS produced a report on this project,
which was broadcast on the most important news program in the
Romandie.
This video is in French. The article with further content is
available here: rts.ch
Personal contribution
Together with Jonas Wolter I developed the whole concept of
this interactive installation. In fact, we developed
everything together in close exchange. We iterated on the
concept and content and created a proper design system. For
the programming I focused more on the web application, the
server and the real-time communication between these.
Tech Stack
TouchDesigner
MadMapper
MaxMsp
SvelteKit
Socket.io
P5.js
Express.js
Background
Conceptually the installation addresses the discourse of
globalized technology and peeks behind the curtain of the
hype surrounding artificial intelligence. In essence, it's
about how technological developments have an impact on our
society and what this means for different regions and
peoples of this world. Many tech solutions that have become
indispensable in the global North and which we have become
accustomed to, can only exist through the systematic
exploitation of the global South. Without the major
discrepancy in income and living conditions, we would not be
able to live out this (in our case) tech luxury to this
extent. The installation Don't Answer Be Happy focuses on the people who make Western tech luxury possible
in the first place through their daily work in precarious conditions,
be it clickwork in the creation of datasets that serve as the
basis for AI algorithms, in content moderation, in the production
of electronic devices or in their recycling. In the Congo, people
are exploited to extract gold and cobalt for our smartphones.
In China, workers have to assemble electronic devices which they
could never afford due to non livable wages. In order for us
to use social media without images of violence and abuse, people
have to categorize images of violence, racism, and sexual assault
every day. AI systems are only highly "intelligent" because they
have been trained by thousands of clickworkers in India. However
for us living in the global North, this side of digital reality
is not largely visible.
Awards
Official selection of the Mapping Festival Geneva
Nomination Alumni Award Lucerne School of Art and Design
Narration
In the installation Don't Answer Be Happy we
have developed a narrative around the personal smartphone, which
deals with the issues described previously. The smartphone is
the focal point and the depicting element that perfectly represents
the difficulties created by technological globalization and digital
colonization. In the installation the role of the visitor is
inverted. The visitor is degraded to a clickworker and only acts
as an extended arm of the smartphone. The smartphone develops
an intelligence, but does not understand the irrationality and
contradictory nature of human interaction with technology and
begins to ask naive questions to its user. The visitor is confronted
with questions and is required to take a stance.
Interaction
The smartphone as the focal point of the different conflicts
is also the interactive element. A new type of interaction
was specifically developed for this installation, based on
gyroscope data of the smartphone, which is accessed via a
web application. All visual and auditory experiences in the
space are based on the rotation of the smartphone. The
visitor also provides answers to the questions by pointing
the smartphone at different projections, resulting in an
immersive experience.
Technology overview
Credits
Concept, Design, Programming, Setup - Jonas Wolter, Simon Müller
