Unit 3
‘1nt0_th1n_AIr’ by Jessica Brauner
‘1nt0_th1n_AIr’ Performance:
‘1nt0_th1n_AIr’ Video:
About the work:
‘1nt0_th1n_AIr’ is a video installation and performance I presented for the Summer MA Exhibition at UAL’s Camberwell Campus on Peckham Road. For this work, I have made a video layering moving images together, including footage of landscapes, the edited visual records of my performances as Ariel and Sea Nymphs, and Stable Diffusion AI video rendering of my footage, some of which has been taken from my artwork in Unit 2. ‘1nt0_th1n_AIr’ also contains Chat GPT generation and edited extracts from Shakespeare’s The Tempest and Shakespeare’s Demonology, which was written by Marion Gibson and Jo Ann Esra. The video work has been presented as a video projection installation, using projction mapping on MadMapper and Premiere Pro, in order to position the projected backdrop as accurately as possible.
The projection has been cast onto a white wall with spectre-like turrets of fire-resistant, translucent voile fabric hung across it and along the floor in a circular strip of fabric. A circular piece of the video projection also fits inside a hanging, circular modroc plaster and wire frame, with the same voile fabric stretched over it. The finished effect presented itself as a set piece, much like the suggestion of a landscape, with waves of draping fabric and the circular moon, or sun that encompassed Ariel’s floating form.
The narrative of the work is centred around an airy spirit named Ariel who serves a sorcerer named Prospero from Shakespeare’s play: The Tempest. Ariel takes multiple forms in the play including that of a sea nymph. The relationship between these two characters serves as a metaphor for human relationships with AI; drawing a parallel between the nebulous nature of the airy spirit and the transcendent nature of AI.
The video contains two scenes which were generated by Chat GPT . The first is Prospero with Ariel as an AI Model, discussing the fate of humanity. This sequence satirises the hubristic nature of AI developers and Jacobean colonisers seeking to advance human knowledge, without anticipation or recognition of the consequences, as suggested by the next scene, in which Ariel glitches and demands to be fed data, followed by an explanation of a witch’s demonic familiar. A familiar was considered to be a companion to a witch that might appear loyal, but could instead seek to obtain the magic-user’s soul and condemn them to damnation. (Gibson and Esra, 2017, pp. 83 – 84) Through this metaphor, I sought to partake in the controversial discussion regarding how online data collection threatens personal and public privacy. The second Chat GPT generated scene follows, telling the story of how Ariel, as an AI Model, became a sea nymph and joined a sea Nymph Community. This was an idea that was taken from my previous Unit 2 work, in which Chat GPT speculated that an AI model’s transformation into a sea nymph would have them join a sea nymph community. The assumption in the generation that a sea nymph community would exist in this scenario is something both humorous and whimsical, which is contrasted with the previous scenes in the performance – offering a view of AI as something misinterpreted and misused, but still magical.
I performed the role of Prospero live in the first scene of the work, duetting with the edited video’s voice as Ariel, responding to the carefully timed sound recording with timed live line delivery. At the midpoint of the performance, the roles of Ariel and Prospero are briefly switched, with Prospero’s voice joining with the video, while I assumed the role of Ariel. The video then continued to play as the representation of the sea nymph community and I continued my performance as Ariel alongside it until the last scene.
In multi-roling, performing onstage costume changes, using placards and making direct address to the viewers, I incorporated a number of Brechtian verfremdungseffekt techniques in the performance. This verfremdungseffekt, otherwise known as a distancing effect, can be used to encourage audiences to consider moral dilemmas demonstrated in the theatre with critical engagement and empathy, and without their judgement being clouded by full immersion. (Martin, 1998, p.77) I hope to educate viewers and promote artistic conversation surrounding AI, occult practice, artistic practice and the ramifications of colonial thinking within the field of emerging technologies, through my performance.
The title of the work is taken from Act 4, scene 1 of The Tempest, in which Prospero interrupts the performance of spirits in a masque with a speech regarding life’s ephemeral nature, beginning it with acknowledgement that the actors in the masque were all spirits that ‘…are melted into air, into thin air’ (Shakespeare, 1999, 4.1:150). At the end of my artwork, this same speech is edited in my performance to become a monologue about the illusory nature of technology. This is contrasted with the final lines of the speech, however: ‘We are such stuff that data is made on, and our little lives are rounded with an off-switch’, which emphasises how the existence of AI’s data is created and continually sustained by human beings.
‘1nt0_Th1n_AIr’ intends to use magical and literary metaphors to unpick the controversy surrounding the popularisation of AI models online and present aspects of multiple perceptions of AI through theatrical narrative, all while blurring the lines between the controlled and the controller, the prompt and the response, the AI model and the performer. What are the moral and creative consequences of assuming greater creative technological power through the harvesting of data? Is the price ultimately worth the reward?
Bibliography:
Gibson, M. and Esra, J. A. (2017). Familiar. Shakespeare’s Demonology: A Dictionary. [online]. Available from: https://www-dramaonlinelibrary-com.arts.idm.oclc.org/encyclopedia-chapter?docid=b-9781472500403&tocid=b-9781472500403-article-0000064&pdfid= [Accessed 29th October 2023].
Martin, C. (1998). Brecht, Feminism, and Chinese Theatre. TDR. Vol 43 No. 4. pp. 77. [online]. Available from: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1146796?searchText=verfremdungseffekt&searchUri=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dverfremdungseffekt&ab_segments=0%2Fbasic_search_gsv2%2Fcontrol&refreqid=fastly-default%3A94a2e8c2a4ef765cd03e25b9fabfd2f7
Shakespeare, W. (1999). The Tempest. Vaughan, V.M and Vaughan A. T. (ed.) London: Bloomsbury.
