PREDICTABLE
2018-20
book + film
Trees On Planet Earth', January 2020 (watercolour inside 'Predictable', a handmade hardback book)
A mystical
narrative
created
using a
predictive
text
algorithm
Mushroom Confidence, January 2020 (watercolour inside 'Predictable', a handmade hardback book)
FULL BOOK
Predictable, January 2020 (watercolour in handmade hardback book)
'Predictable' has been donated to Brooklyn Sketchbook Library.
At the library, visitors are given a random book alongside the book they've requested.
Hopefully, this book will be given randomly.
Just like predictive text, the reader will stumble upon a suggestion.
AUTHORED BY ALGORITHMS
March 2018
The predictive text algorithm fabricated a romantic relationship, referring to a girl and a ‘him’, and it reads like poetry or a diary entry. This feels uncomfortable, since the narrative seems so authentic, intimate and confessional, yet it’s been created by an emotionless algorithm.
I performed the scenes which were predicted for me, making my phone's reality my own reality too. I was inspired by the algorithmically controlled YouTubers discussed by James Bridle ("even if you’re a human, you have to end up impersonating the machine").
" The narrative
seems so authentic,
intimate and confessional, yet it’s been created
by an algorithm. "
"The world froze up with a girl", March 2017 (screenshot of film)
"You're sleeping with other shapes and colours", March 2017 (screenshot of film)
"Work with the girls who code", March 2017 (screenshot of film)
The algorithmic narrative was placed within library books throughout the Bibliothèque et Archives Nationales du Québec. By placing the text within real books, the computerised author was elevated to the same status as human authors.