Uncanny Fire

Link to the project: http://uncannyfire.monicarikic.com/

Uncanny Fire is a exercise of imagination with the aim of breaking with the universal perception of the technological development imposed by western culture. It all starts with a game: let’s imagine that we have already reached this dreadful future where machines are equally or more intelligent as humans. If they have self-awareness, what behaviours will emerge in their system?

If machines become self-aware, we would find artificial agents playing human roles, since they have been shaped in the image of the human mind. Could this identity confusion generate disorders such as anxiety and depression in these artificial agents, and could machines suffer existential crises?

This web-based project, is an experimental and hyperlinked space from where you can navigate around the mind of a concious machine with existencial crisis, while you discover different resources around my personal research around the topic.

You can find two different types of content: external resources or internal thoughts from the machine. You can find the content links in different hot spots around the space, labeled in black and white, that you can click. The manchine thoughts are created by video pieces, where you can listen to her (speculative) thoughts (you can find them below this text). The external resources are different links that will lead you to more information that creates the conceptual base of the project.

All together, creates a non-linear way of navigating an artistic research process that I’ve been developing in my recent practice.

Sound by Rodolfo Venegas. Voice by Carmen Vázquez. 8bit design by Raul Berrueco. Videos by Marta Verde and Marta Minguell.

*Video contents are in Spanish. You can add automatic subtitles to the videos.