unintended consequences

A gesture cannot be regarded as the expression of an individual, as his creation …... nor can it even be regarded as that

person's instrument; on the contrary, it is gestures that use us as their instruments, as their bearers and incarnations

― Milan Kundera, Immortality

Unintended Consequences utilizes gesture as a symbolic representation of language to explore intention and consent in communication. The viewer’s actions are manipulated through interactivity, and these actions are assigned new meaning by reframing the context in which the actions take place. Each participant unwittingly becomes a sign-carrier (semaphore from Greek), engaged in the act of transcribing a creation that is not their own, and which they had no intention to communicate.

Through their participation in an interactive game, participants unwittingly engage in a semaphore performance of the poem “For the Bristlecone Snag”, where the meaning of their gestures is re-signified as semaphore code. This poem was created by a poetry generator as a ‘Turing Test’ (in which a computer can sufficiently pass as a human being), and was accepted into a literary journal at a prestigious university to demonstrate that AI can create poetry indistinguishable from human poets.

Unintended Consequences points to the lack of control humans have over systems of meaning. The work references Wittgenstein’s theory of ‘meaning as use’ and draws on Derrida’s idea that ongoing and endless modification of signifying chains is an irreducible feature of communication. By using the induction of action as a tool to create the work, the artists challenge the notion that the meaning of an action is fixed by a mental act. At every moment actions can be re-contextualized to create new meaning. The intention of the participant does not enter into the description of how their actions are used. They do not control the signifying system.

Site 2 composite image. The captured image is manipulated so that the participants are holding semaphore flares at site 2.

Site 2 semaphore performance. Video of the participant performing a semaphore translation of “For a Bristlecone Snag”. A pico projector projects the composite video onto ground glass.

Site 1 VIVE game interface. Site 1 is a ‘game’ where the viewer interacts in a virtual space and their actions are tracked using a VIVE system. The game rewards participants for making ‘correct’ gestures that progress them through the game. Video of the participants engaging in the game is captured, along with three-dimensional tracking data, and combined into imagery which is called on in sequence to play at site 2.

Site 1 camera capture. Video of the participants engaging in the game is captured, along with three-dimensional tracking data, and combined into imagery which is called on in sequence to play at site 2. Site 1 creates an interactive experience that is surreptitiously driven by content at site 2. Unbeknownst to the participant, their actions captured at site 1 are gestures from the semaphore alphabet.

Documentation from installation at Beijing Media Art Biennale (2018)

Beijing Media Art Biennale (2018)

This project was supported by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body.