Nominations: Drempelprijs 2018 and Excel Yourself Scholarship 2018*
Overtref Jezelf Beurs, Hogeschool Rotterdam will be handed out on September the 6th, 2018
The person on the other side is dead.
Ping! You have a new message. Ah, you see it’s someone dear. It’s been quite a while since you’ve heard from her, so you quickly reply.
....is writing.
After waiting in anticipation, a smile forms on your face. Such a typical thing of her to say. This interaction goes back and forth for quite a while. Some tears are shed, some jokes are cracked and of course, you throw in some smileys. Nothing out of the norm, right? Except, change one thing. The person on the other side is dead.
We live in an age where our lives are hugely affected by technology. However, such a thing that has that much influence on our lives ultimately has to have an influence on our deaths. This phenomenon is explored in the ongoing research 'The Death of Death".
The Death of Death
For this specific project, the research has been focussing on the use of memorial bots and its effects on our ways of mourning. With these bots, you can interact with an AI based on a deceased person via a screen that can act upon what you type (a chatlog) or voice recognition. It raises questions surrounding a supposed immortality, representation through a bot and our autonomy regarding our own death or the death of others.
'please don't go' proposes the possibilities that can follow from the implementation of memorial bots and explores current technologies to see if a prediction can be made through artistic methods. It is a speculative scenario that is installed into a multi-sensory setting to keep the subject intimate for the experiencer.
