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Training Set (2022)

Clay, latex, silicone, oil and spray paint, smart speakers

30cm diameter x 4


“Training Set” is a 4 part interactive sculpture installation that explores the use of emerging voice assistant technologies to meet our complex human needs for structure, care and companionship. Visitors to Zentrum für Kunst und Urbanistik (Berlin) were invited to talk to the sculptures which had concealed smart speaker devices inside them.



 
(c) Elisa Georgi / (c) Sarah Ciston


Training Set Prototype 1 (Clay, silicone, latex, oil and spray paint, echo dot smart speaker, instructions on paper).







Training Set Prototype 1: virtual girlfriend Installation view at Another New Beginning group exhibition, Stenkolsateljén Göteborg 2022

Historically under-recognised and un/underpaid feminised forms of labour are being simulated, simplified and packaged as a sellable product in the emerging fields of voice user interface design and natural language understanding/processing.

In Prototype #1, found Alexa “skills” are highlighted as examples of the trope of the virtual girlfriend. Exhibition visitors could activate a vocal response from the mouth sculpture by saying one of the example phrases listed on the wall beside it.

With support from Göteborgs Stad




Documentation of Training Set “conversation booths” and research materials,
various locations at ZK/U OPENHAUS, Berlin 2022.



Rosie domestic helper, ZK/U entrance hall



In a practice of mutual extraction with Amazon inc., a series of fictional AI personas were equipped with specialised “skills“. They offer a range of partly fictional and partly real-world services that automate reproductive labour of various kinds: a virtual therapist, girlfriend, housekeeper and reproductive health assistant.

Training Set pushes current tropes of techno-capitalism into a not-so-distant speculative future.


(c) Elisa Georgi





Freja fertility assistant, ZK/U




Eliza’s therapy room and research materials (moodboards for each character, mind map of reference materials on wall), Studio 11



Mia’s virtual girlfriend experience + youtube showreel of research materials, Studio 11
Images (c) Elisa Georgi




International Residency at Zentrum Für Kunst und Urbanistik (ZK/U) Berlin was supported by Helge Ax:son Johnsons stiftelse, Konstnärsnämnden and Västra Götalands Regionen.