The Other Side: Algorithm as Ritual in Artificial Intelligence

Our cultural and scientific understandings of neural networks are built on a set of philosophical ideas which might turn out to be superstitions. Drawing on methodologies of defamiliarisation and performance art which have been adopted by HCI, we present an analog apparatus for the ritualistic performance of neural network algorithms. The apparatus draws on the interaction modes of the Ouija board to provide a system which involves the user in the computation. By recontextualising neural computation, the work creates critical distance with which to examine the philosophical and cultural assumptions embedded in our conception of AI.