Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/5219
78 winter 2009 What does it mean when two artificial intelligent agents can engage in such a discussion with each other? The learned wit and bravado of this imaginary encounter suggests a state of technological smartness that has not yet been realized within the various scientific disciplines and artistic practices associated with what the writer Mitchell Whitelaw has called "metacreation": that is, the genesis by computational means of "artificial systems that mimic or manifest the properties of living systems." Perhaps conversations of the kind documented previously will be possible when artificial agents extend beyond mere "advisory" to "executive capabilities," to borrow Manuel De landa's menacing invocation of machine intelligence in the service of the military-industrial complex. As technological smartness becomes more sophisticated, a more urgent dilemma arises: how can we prove that something is not artificially intelligent? This is a metaphysical conundrum that has bedeviled the historical imagination, the apocalyptic moment when we can no longer reliably count on the appearance of things as a reliable reflection of the reality of things. Both Prosthetic Head and p-zombie are the most recent explorations by their respective artists into the ongoing rattle and hum of the human-computer interface. Both are artists of extremes, pushing beyond the limits of credulity and even taste in their inquisitions into the notion of a humanity that can no longer be defined without resorting to questions of technology. From Stelarc's current Ear on Arm project (which involves the cultivation of a Bluetooth-enabled ear on his left forearm) to McKeich's placement of flesh and viscera directly on to the flatbed scanner, both literally put their bodies, or body parts, on the technological line. Since the mid-1970s, Stelarc has sought to stretch the elasticity of our definitions of the body, especially under advanced technological conditions. From his Third Hand, in which he augments his own manual dexterity with an extra robotic limb, to his phantom and fractal flesh works involving the body wired into the digital noise of the Internet (Ping Body, Fractal Flesh), he has offered us visions of where we might be heading as our senses are amplified across global distances. Ear on Arm extends this virtual reach that we take for granted in the name of global media, potentially enabling anyone anywhere to hear what the artist hears through his extra ear. Stelarc's Prosthetic Head (2004-ongoing) continues his interest in technological smartness by interpreting the latter not so much as clever gadgetry but rather as artificial intelligence. With this work he is not seeking to modify the human, but humanize the technological. Prosthetic Head is an animated representation of the artist's own face that is projected on to a large screen or surface, usually in a darkened gallery. It exemplifies Stelarc's interest in the idea of the prosthesis as an excess, a double, rather than something that makes up for a lack (such as a missing limb). Prosthetic Head is an example of an embodied conversational agent; an entity capable of sensing the presence of another and initiating a conversation. An unnerving prospect in itself, but even more so when we are talking about a head dissociated from a body. MuRRAY MCKEICH P-zOMBIE, 2007