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<AR Installation, rug, 2019>
<Bots>
With the use of augmented reality Banz & Bowinkel localize AI – controlled avatars on specifically designed areas within the gallery. The avatars have been developed by Banz & Bowinkel in cooperation with HTW Berlin and act out simulated performances, which can be seen as formalized social studies, in real time. The topic of the series is the synthesis and abstraction of human behavioral patterns in a computer-controlled society. Even today we (unknowingly) meet a variety of bots in our day-to-day life. They chart our activities and influence our decisions by imitating human behavior. The predictability of human behavior and it being systematically manipulated by such systems form one aspect of Banz & Bowinkel’s new body of work. Another aspect is the fact that the created bots don’t have any access to the conditions of their behavior within the simulations. They cannot change the rules of their reality. The works visualize a world in which autonomy is only given to the creators of such social constructs, which makes the question of the distribution of power in such systems a key topic.
Text by DAM Gallery