introduction
interview
exhibition history

Vicky Isley & Paul Smith
Research Fellows in Computer Animation & Computer Art
NCCA, Bournemouth University
t: +44 (0) 1202 966699
e: info at boredomresearch dot net

boredomresearch is represented by [DAM] Berlin

"My spook Pembroke appears to be developing a poetic side. Has anyone elses developed this trait? He keeps popping up messages saying things like...."she cried when she saw the garden". Actualy he talks about "she" quite a lot. "she" deleted pikachu etc."pembrokesparent, carlisle, UK

"I thought you were being mental with all the pokemon names, untill I got a Butterfree code. Too bad i think my spook, Raul, wants Goldeen code. Does anyone knows what happens if you give the spook the right code?"
Kayin James, Toronto, Canada

"My perverted spook Roswell needs Hoothoot to make him tingle as he puts it. Please mail the Hoothoot code to me if you have it. I think you must look in the folder under which you installed Posessed for a file named "Hoothoot.txt". If you have it, please send it to me! Thanx :0)"
GeminiJudge, Potchefstroom, South Africa

"I have started to have dreams about my Spook, Walworth. He doesn't appear in them but sends me text messages on my phone. It's very nice and not at all scary. I half think I have a crush on him. It would be nice to communicate more with him, a two way dialogue would be good. Just had a 'gloom.txt.' file. Not sure about gloom! Ruth" Ruth Watkins, Bromsgrove, UK

" I have a type D spook named Beorna, I have had her less than an hour, apparently she is likely to be prophetic. At the moment she has created a lycos cursor trail and has just told me error file allready in use by a device unknown to science. This is fun I am looking forward to seeing how she develops." Maggie Hutchby, Leics, UK

"Okay, I have a type D called Wincel, corny jokes and elusive "OK" buttons a speciality, will all spooks called Wincel develop the same traits?"
Paul Bendoris, Glasgow, UK

Possessed Spook Player Window (2001)

Possessed grew from an interest in the way audiences develop relationships with artworks and in generative time-based works where events are created as a result of interaction and computation. Before Possessed we had produced software driven works for specific audiences in public spaces. We were keen to develop a software work that challenged existing notions of software art, encouraging users to develop a relationship with the work over an extended time frame of up to six months. We were keen to reverse our previous psychology of building one work to communicate to many and instead build works that moulded themselves around the individual users. This was aided by the way we could use the web to deliver the software to the user, placing their computer in the hands of our web-based psychic medium.

Possessed explored our relationship with unexplained digital phenomena. The user downloaded two pieces of software from the web: a Spook Generator, which creates spooks, and a Spook Player, to play spooks. Once installed on a user¹s computer, the spooks would gradually make themselves known through their behaviour made visible to the user on screen. They could be friendly, violent, perverted or prophetic. After a time spooks began to ask questions. By responding, users would further affect their spook¹s development. Many played pranks unexpectedly: moving icons, opening windows and giving fake error messages. Love letters left by spooks on their hard drives fascinated some users. All spooks would ask the user to help them find a file. Users began to contact each other via the Possessed website trying to find the code their spook was searching for. Every user could experience a completely different phenomenon. For some, the experience was addictive; others fell in love with their spooks; others found them too annoying and deleted the spook software from their machine.

Possessed was commissioned by Artsway as part of the organisation¹s commitment to supporting the production of new work, encouraging experimentation and providing a supportive environment for development.

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mobilegaze interview by Sylvie Parent (Oct 2002)

Possessed Spook Generator downloadable application, 2001


Q1: Your work Possessed plays with the idea that there is a being in the computer, in the box, a living organism. The user of the Spook generator/player is dealing with a digital being that is at the same time engaging - one's own spook, like an adopted pet - and yet, unpredictable. How did people react to the work?

Boredomresearch: Within a couple of weeks of launching the Possessed website, a user set-up an online fan club. We started to realize how quickly people become transfixed with their spooks, proudly exclaiming tales of intimate and unique experiences which they shared with their spooks. A Possessed community has formed, where users post their unique spook codes and Pokémon files. Users are determined to satisfy their spooks needs, going to great lengths to find the file their spook is constantly searching for.

‘There you go – conclusive proof that what you want isn’t always good for you, Wincel’s dead now, too much Butterfree at one go, no doubt…." A quote from a Possessed user who fed their spook the right code.

As every person can experience a completely different phenomenon with their spook, it gives new users an incentive to invest quality time engaging and nurturing their own spook. We are playing with the unexpected, users don’t know what their spook will say or do next.

Each spook has its own character, they can be friendly, violent, perverted or prophetic. Depending on how users react and engage with their spooks, their characters can change. There have been fads for certain spooks, some users spend hours on the generator trying to find a spook of a particular temperament.

The whole Possessed experience is very personal, users are willing to share their intimate computer space with these living organisms. Many people are protective of things invading their computer, so much so that they go to great lengths to guard against others using their personal computer system. So users form an intimate, trusting relationship with their spooks – one user has fallen in love with her spook, some find their spooks entertaining, some can’t stop playing with their spooks, some are addicted, everyone seems to have a unique experience.

Q2: Many people don't really know what's in their computer. Many also fear a virus. But that doesn't really refrain them from downloading unknown material. Are you dealing with this desire/fear dichotomy?

Boredomresearch: Yes, that’s exactly it, those magical grey boxes are constantly in conversation with the wider world and they sometimes know more about us than our closest friends. With their little message windows they ask us to agree and except all sorts of things. I hope they don't take offence when we don't understand what they mean.

Many of the digital spooks play on this by threatening to send information about you to people on your email list. They also throw up error messages proclaiming "file removed by unknown!". During the construction of the project we learnt that many of the things we were alluding to were actually not so hard to achieve. It would have been surprisingly simple to make the Possessed application rummage around your hard drive, randomly deleting files, or to have it track down your outlook folder and email list, using the information within for its own nefarious objectives. But despite many spooks openly declaring this possibility, people still play with them. Maybe they trust that a project funded by the Arts Council of England is guaranteed safe, or maybe trust is their default setting, or could it be that they like the risk?

The question of risk and reward is being debated on another level. The huge explosion of computer networks is a bit like a big bang, spewing out a vast electronic space-time continuum. This electronic real-estate is rapidly being populated with living, self-replicating chunks of code. These small beings, existing of nothing more than electrical energy occasionally make their presence known to us when our computers start behaving strangely and saying things we don't understand. It's not just about viruses made by disturbed teenagers though. Evolving self-replicating programs are showing great potential for the way they can solve complex problems and many big corporations, including British Telecom, are very interested in the way these decentralized systems can be used to manage unruly telephone networks. Obviously there is an inherent risk in populating global networks with living organisms. Maybe Possessed shows us this wider question along with an indication of how we would answer.

Q3: Generative programs and works involving generators of all kind are fascinating because they create an impression of an autonomous life, something that behaves independently. People seem to have a tendency to see beings where there are none, they don't want to check any further as long as there is some promise of another life. They are more than willing to believe in other life forms and take part to this apparent life process. What do you think about this phenomenon and how does it apply to Possessed?

Boredomresearch: At the height of the Tamagotchi craze an incident was reported where a woman boarding a plane was asked by an air hostess to switch off her digital pet, in case it interfered with the planes electrics. The woman kicked up a huge fuss proclaiming that she was being asked to kill her pet and ultimately refused to fly. This may be seen to demonstrate one extreme, where we are easily led into believing that something is alive when it is not. We have experienced a similar loss. On returning to the UK from Canada, we plugged in our computer forgetting to switch the voltage back to 240 volts. A loud bang, flash of blue light and wisp of smoke marked the end of a hard-drive we had named Eve. Eve was dead and, like people, she had taken many thoughts and memories from this world to the next. She had also taken a large amount of work that we had not yet had a chance to back up. Despite knowing Eve was never truly alive, our sense of loss was real. We suspect that the woman with the Tamagotchi was really more concerned about loosing the time she had invested developing her digital entity and that the idea of it being murdered was just a suitable vehicle for expressing this.

Although we are happy to play with the idea of computers being alive or intelligent like us, deep down we seem unsettled by this possibility. Following the victory of the computer Deep Blue over the then world chess champion Garray Kasparove in 1997, it was declared that playing world class chess did not require intelligence. As scientist attempt to create artificial beings, we react by moving the goal posts. For example, the Turing test has a human judge hold a three-way conversation with a computer and another human. The judge then decides if they can spot the imposter. Human candidates have failed the test on grounds of producing extended well-written paragraphs of informative text. It would seem that to prove themselves intelligent they need to be at least a bit stupid. We are constantly outperformed by computers that can play chess better than us, calculate faster and as we type this paragraph, Microsoft Word shows us how it can spell better than us. As early as 1540, people were freaked out by automata, sophisticated clockwork dolls whose movements were considered so lifelike as to lead them to believe a spirit had possessed them. It seems that in order to cope with what at first seems freakishly lifelike we shift our understanding to counter this. In 1917 the Czech dramatist Karal Capek wrote the play ‘Rossum’s Universal Robots’, in which intelligent thinking machines made to serve man, rebel, killing all humankind. Maybe the only reliable test for intelligent living beings is the Karal Capek test!

Q4: How do you perceive the notion of the "soul" engaging in your work Possessed?

Boredomresearch: There are many things we feel we understand about how we humans work, from the blood pumping through our veins to electrical and chemical signals in our brains. Soul is the other bit we have yet to understand. Genetics appears to be eating into this mystery revealing sequences of deoxyribonucleic acids that are responsible for who and what we are. Our understanding of genetics has evolved in tandem with computing and our development of programming. These programming languages could prove to be vastly more significant in our evolution than spoken language. On the programming side we are learning how to construct experiences and beings in code and on the genetics side we are reverse engineering the binary code of DNA. Maybe sometime soon they will meet in the middle. Until such time as we are able to upgrade our brains and fully understand the intricacies of genetics and programming, the spirit of ourselves and of those beige computing machines is safely in the realm of magic and mystery.

Q5: How do you compare this work with other previous and future projects? Is this project related to or different from others you were/are involved in?

Boredomresearch: Possessed was our first project that played with the idea of artificial life. Following this we have become very interested in this field. At the Banff Centre for the Arts (Canada) we built ‘System 1.6’, a computational soundscape. It was made during the "SloMo" thematic residency and uses artificial life algorithms to construct a live sound composition. It is a projected tank containing 13 digital species that interact with each other in a brightly coloured electronic world. Each species is given a simple set of instructions that are executed by the computer’s processor. The work demonstrates how a few simple rules can be combined to create a complex life like system. A system that swings unpredictably between moments of tranquility and franticness and demonstrates how emergent behavior can be harnessed to form an engaging audio visual composition that never repeats. We are interested in the computer models used to study decentralized systems like ant colonies and traffic flow, not for any understanding they may give but for the creative potential that they hold. When we create a digital entity or ecosystem we are fascinated by the behavior that emerges, the things we did not directly code into the program. We can spend hours watching the creatures interact with each other but never feel guilty switching them off. We are currently researching the creative possibilities of genetic algorithms for evolving art works.


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exhibition history


Possessed Spook Player windows, 2001

exhibitions 2001-2002


2002
Garage, Festival for Art, Music & Film, Stralsund Germany (26 July-17 Aug 2002)
Read_Me, International Media Art Festival & Competition, Moscow (18-19 May 2002)
Matter & Memory, Montreal online exhibition in 2002


2001
Artsway, Sway (4 – 6 May 2001)


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