[THE MACHINE]
by Orion Maxted
[THE MACHINE] is formed by people continually reproducing and mutating each other’s words and gestures according to an algorithm. Output becomes input creating a continual live feedback-loop and the potential for complex behavior to emerge from simple rules.
Applying algorithmic transformations to everyday language, [THE MACHINE] ignites a mesmerizing roller-coaster in the imagination, playfully shifting subjectivities between ‘you’, ‘I’, ‘we’, and ‘the Machine’. In this computer the human components playfully destabilize the discontinuity between nature and machine; asking in what ways we are – in our language, our subjectivities, our societies, our bodies, our collectivities – conglomerations of machines or algorithms. And by the same token, how machines are extensions of us, and so of nature.
[THE MACHINE] is a self generating performance machine – with a different output each time it is performed - it is a laboratory for the creation of new modes of thinking together; in other words, for the creation of new systems of thought, new subjectivities, new ideas, new worlds.