Afroditi Psarra

Ventriloquist Ontology explores the limits of control and hybridization between human and machine through the relationship of a performer and a wearable entity. This entity articulates text generated using the GPT-2 language model, trained on a dataset of texts around biopolitics, algo-governance, the surveillanced body, and queer theory, and manifests itself by producing involuntary movement through a series of linear actuators. The concept of ventriloquism is used to give agency to an ontological entity composed of subtle suggestive wearable modules, human flesh and cognitive motor abilities, born-digital, able to produce novel language, but also conditioned to reproduce the biases of its algorithmic parts.

Ventriloquist Ontology probes the limits of control between human and machine through the relationship of a performer and a wearable entity. This entity articulates AI-generated text trained on biopolitics, algo-governance, and queer theory which manifests with involuntary movement through a series of linear actuators. The concept of ventriloquism gives agency to an ontological hybrid of wearable modules, human flesh and motor abilities, able to produce novel language, but conditioned to its algorithmic biases.