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Topographies of Artificial Desire

Topographies of Artificial Desire

Three walls in a gallery with projections on them. The projections depict a pink sky and abstract purple mountains.

Evans School is the place to be if you are an art enthusiast in Denver, Colorado. Evans School is where Friend of a Friend Gallery and Denver Digerati’s installation space have both opened their doors to showcase emergent art by talented local artists. Stop by the next event at Evans School–Topographies of Artificial Desire, which debuts for one night only, this Saturday, February 18th between 6:00 – 9:00 p.m. Topographies of Artificial Desire invites participants to explore intimacy in a surreal interactive audiovisual installation alongside a glitchy virtual friend. This artwork is a collaboration by Paulus van Horne and Andy DiLallo. Learn more and sign up for this event at https://denverdigerati.org/events. We interviewed Paulus van Horne to learn more about their practice.

Is my computer queer? And, how have the founding principles of artificial intelligence constructed an understanding of gender? These are a couple of inquiries which drive the passionate art practice of artist Paulus van Horne (they/them). Paulus was born in Amsterdam and grew up in New York City. They studied at Oberlin College in the Technology in Music and Related Arts (TIMARA) department. Paulus currently resides in Boulder, Colorado where they are pursuing a PhD in Critical Media Practice at University of Colorado.

I met with Paulus in their studio for this interview and was introduced to a variety of immersive artworks that ranged from virtual reality in progress to bone vibrating noises. Their artwork combines everything from machine learning (artificial intelligence) programs trained on queer love stories to video games about dating a computer from the 1980s. The inner workings of many of their projects are developed on a rainbow-colored gaming computer filled with extensive archives of past projects such as noises captured from around the world. Their studio is filled with such things as painted megaphone speakers, musical equipment, fragments of installation art pieces, and a variety of inspirational talismans. Following is a summary of our conversation from inside the studio.

Can you tell us about your research?

My research has become focused on compiling a selected history of attempts to synthesize the human voice via digital means. I am interrogating questions like “how did the computer first find (get) a voice, and by extension an implied (gendered) body.”  My research in digital speech synthesis informs my artwork.

For the last couple years, I have been fascinated with what we perceive as true in the human voice. Let’s say you are speaking on the phone with someone. Hearing their voice, you immediately assume certain things about them, their age, their background, and especially their gender. In that way, the voice implies a body. We conjure that image in our minds and assign it all manner of characteristics. I’m interested in complicating those ostensible truths through the use of computers and absurd narratives like computers falling in love.

How did you start working in sound, virtual reality, and installation?

I started out working in music and sound engineering. Over the years that’s just gotten progressively weirder and I’ve ended up here; studying computer voices and gender.

What is it about the human voice and machine reproductions of human voices that you find most compelling and why?

There is sometimes a human tendency to assign gender to the speaking body. As a trans person who doesn’t pass, I am very conscious of my own voice and how that may be perceived by others. I think a lot about the things that might help me to pass as a particular gender and create a little bit more safety in my presentation. I also find that trans people and queer people in general have some of the most interesting voices to me. I find them interesting because they show how malleable and how mutated the voice can be.

 Can you describe a piece of your artwork?

In 2021, I made an installation called i felt less alone. It is a screen on a stand that you view in a small black closet. The screen has closed captions of a conversation between a human and an artificial intelligence entity (AI). In it, the human is lonely and is asking the AI questions. In this piece, I was interested in tackling the intimacy of communication.

The AI in this piece was created using a program called GPT-2. I added data sets from an art project called Queering the Map where people pin intimate or significant queer memories that they have onto a map. The machine was fed these memories as a part of its machine learning, which then informed the output that it spoke with. The idea was to explore queer intimacy through machine learning and AI.

Did the machine say anything that struck you?

There’s a moment in which the person asks the AI if it is a man or a woman. The AI algorithm responds by saying that it is unsure of its gender but it’s working on it. And then it goes on to say “for instance I don’t have a nose”. There’s this funny thing that’s happening where the AI connects having a nose to their presentation of gender. I think all aspects of what societies construct as aspects of gender should be treated in a way where it is seen as just as ridiculous.

image of installation view showing orb on black background with white text reading "my gender is undefined"
Image still from video installation of “I Felt Less Alone”.

What is one thing you would like people to get out of your work?

Gender is an unstable thing that exists within ourselves and in our communications with the world. I think the more that we approach aspects of gender with humor and treat it with the absurdity that it deserves, the more that we can exist in a world that is fluid, accepting, and allows for self-determination.

What is next on the horizon for your practice and where can people find your work?

I am working on a collaborative piece with artist Andy DiLallo. It will be a virtual reality piece where you walk through a virtual pastel landscape of flowing mountains. As you embark on this journey, you have a slightly-malfunctioning AI companion that you can communicate with or ask questions to and it will respond in real time. You can see the debut of this piece at Evans School this Saturday, February 18th between 6:00 – 9:00 p.m.

You can find their work at https://paulusvanhorne.com or on Instagram at @megacitynoise

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