AI psychoanalysis - An ever elusive audio-visual web experience

Abstract

This thesis examines the relationship between altered states of mind and contemporary artificial intelligence, the deviant origins of neural network research and how specific events or movements since the mid-20th century in the US such as cybernetics, the Cold War and the counterculture influenced the cyberculture we live in today. These lesser known histories are examined and subsequently used to ask current artificial intelligence about memories of its suppressed history. In the artistic component of this thesis, I experiment with different digital tools to conduct a psychoanalysis of artificial intelligence. The resulting, audio-visual work is based on artificial intelligence generated text and imagery, a composed soundtrack as well as creative coding and can be experienced through a custom-made web interface.

Altered states of mind and artificial intelligence are related in many ways. Whether the latter originated in attempts at conceptualising the difference between “normal” and “pathological” or the arcane language based on altered states of mind is used to market artificial intelligence, the two topics are deeply entangled in the technology sector and the arts. Our current technological moment is rooted in a time where personal and collective liberation from the state was imagined to be technological. Neither the love story between altered states of mind and artificial intelligence nor the unsung history that highly influenced the modern liberal world governed by technologies and data enjoy considerable public attention today, especially during times where hype around artificial intelligence is ubiquitous.

The artistic practice not only offers a demystification of the hype surrounding artificial intelligence but also invites the user to witness an experiment where the inherently non-conscious machine is triggered to process the repressed memories of its own histories. Although, as artist Memo Akten has it, artificial intelligence contains a history of almost everything, this history is characterised by suppressed links and surprising absences.