Issue link: http://read.uberflip.com/i/5219
80 winter 2009 viscera and bones into an impossible nature; producing the sensation of what the artist calls "visual intelligence." p-zombie, like Prosthetic Head, also evidences multiple personalities, which express themselves as a series of phantasmagorical mutations reminiscent of a painting by Giuseppe Arcimboldo [See Resources] on speed. The stunning fantasia of its metamorphosis suggests a tribe or colony of p-zombies coming into being, summoned by the spell of some weird digital vodou. In its ongoing appearances at installations and exhibitions around the world, Prosthetic Head continues to develop maturity and fluency as a conversational agent, adapting to its myriad visitors with increasing sophistication and complexity. In its animated form, p-zombie's silent gestures of speech also suggest the desire to communicate. But to whom and about what? Wouldn't it be fascinating to know? Perhaps p-zombie's mute vocalization conceals a sentience that is unfamiliar or unknown, a savant-like ability to complete prodigious mental feats like calculating Pi to one million decimal places, or conjugating the verb "to be" at the event horizon of a black hole. This schism in the communicative act is suggestive of certain pathological disorders, such as hysteria or affective psychosis; symptoms, by the way, that have bedeviled the cybernetic set throughout pop-cultural history, from Max Headroom's machinic stammering to Marvin the Paranoid Android's abstract melancholia. With the schizoid Prosthetic Head also in mind, I can foresee a lucrative psychiatric trade in the treatment of intelligent agents. And as chatty as it can be and will continue to become, Prosthetic Head will have no problem submitting to the talking cure. With this loquaciousness in mind, I like to think of Prosthetic Head and p-zombie as Pre-Raphaelite dandies, conversing with the mannered, bookish erudition of a couple of Oxbridge Dons, complete with the decadent rhotacism and priggishness of Evelyn Waugh's Anthony Blanche and Mr. Samgrass from Brideshead Revisited.. The figure of the zombie is an apt one for thinking about the question of artificial intelligent agency. zombies are by nature figures of mediation, between worlds and under the control of remote others. As Stelarc's use of the zombie metaphor in his internet actuated work of the 1990s suggests, in the age of remote sensing, avatars, phantom and fractal flesh, it is arguably the paradigm of our emergent third nature, of technologically mediated co- presence. In the contemporary discussion of the philosophical or p-zombie of cognitive science and philosophies of mind, we encounter a speculative formula for thinking about an age old dilemma: how reflective or deceptive is outer appearance of an entity's being or intelligence? In the writings of Daniel Dennett and David Chalmers, among others, the p-zombie is explored as a kind of alternative Turing Test, designed to assess behavior as a verifiable indicator of conscious will. Remember the old adage may apply: if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's a duck. As yet, neither Prosthetic Head nor p-zombie is sufficiently complex to pass that metaphysical threshold from artificial lifelikeness to life. Perhaps Faceted Head will finally achieve the techno-rapture of consciousness and unleash its condescending wit and opinionated attitude into the lesser world of mortal flesh. I want more intelligence from the artificial agent class than the current quotient evidenced by experiments in generative art and embodied conversational agents. And I want a lot more attitude. Beyond the illusion of life or the simulation of dialogue, I want to feel unnerved, second-guessed by a technological smartness in excess of the algorithm, cellular automata and fuzzy logic. In fact, I want to remove myself from the dialogue altogether and eavesdrop on a couple of AIs that are unaware of being watched. That dialogue may be bookish, it may be in an unknown language or beyond language altogether. However it breaks down it should be startling, uncanny and disturbing. Darren Tofts is a Melbourne based writer and Professor of Media and Communications at Swinburne University of Technology. His publications include Prefiguring Cyberculture: An Intellectual History (MIT Press). Perhaps p-zombie's mute vocalization conceals a sentience that is unfamiliar... a savant-like ability to complete prodigious mental feats like calculating Pi to one million decimal places. Stelarc http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/arcx.html Stelarc, Prosthetic Head http://www.stelarc.va.com.au/prosthetichead/ Murray McKeich p-zombie http://www.youtube.com/user/generativeart Giuseppe Arcimboldo http://www.giuseppe-arcimboldo.org/ resources