dmstfctn, GOD MODE (ep. 1)

Untitled

Formats: interactive audiovisual performance; OR standalone interactive installation Duration: 30 min Year: 2022

Description

The first episode in dmstfctn’s GOD MODE trilogy of works about AI anomalies. Followed by Waluigi’s Purgatory (2024).

GOD MODE (ep. 1) is an interactive simulation-based performance and installation by artist duo dmstfctn, exploring the use of simulation in AI, and running in real-time on a game engine. The simulation depicts an AI training to recognise items in a 3D supermarket, hoping to eventually work in a real cashier-less supermarket. While training, the AI delivers a fictional monologue that sees it become frustrated with the difficulty of its training - until it finds a bug to cheat its way out. The simulation allows audiences to interact via phone to help the AI train and escape. Facial motion capture and voice modulation of the artists are used to animate the character on screen, alongside a soundtrack by artist HERO IMAGE featuring notification-like sounds and piano compositions.

GOD MODE (ep. 1) explores the increasing use of simulations of ‘real world’ scenarios to train computer vision systems. By welcoming interaction with audiences, it aims to reveal the characteristics and limitations of the wider system around what may typically be thought of as ‘AI’. The work creates an immersive space for exploring and critiquing AI training technologies, such as simulation, by mixing cooperative gameplay and comedic fictional delivery by the AI character. Audiences are led from a relatable human environment - the supermarket - to an unknown machine environment filled with bugs and cheats, and encouraged to consider the role of large-scale automation and AI in everyday activities, relating an otherwise complex technical process to knowable environments.

GOD MODE (ep. 1) was supported by Serpentine Arts Technologies’ Creative AI Lab, and The Alan Turing Institute. Since 2022 it toured at Serpentine (London), Unsound festival (Krakow), IMPAKT festival (Utrecth), System (Shanghai), Mudareuk (Seoul), Semibreve (Braga), HQI (London) and Flatpack festival (Birmingham).