- Venue
- Fabrica
- Location
- South East England
The Chameleon Project’s Prototype 9 and The Science of Sympathy
Currently exhibited in Brighton’s Fabrica Gallery, The Chamelion Project’s ‘Prototype 9’ is the penultimate prototype in a two year exploration into the science of sympathy. Primarily created by Australian born artist Tina Gonsalves, along with a purpose built team comprising of Emotional Neurologists and Neuroscientists from across the globe, The Chamelion Project was put in place to test the possibility of pre-programmed, digitalised empathy. Originally studying the social interaction between a group of friends, the project has grown to a point where sophisticated computer software has been specifically designed to create a sympathetic encounter between audience and piece.
Upon entering Fabrica, a church turned gallery, one is met with a sense of serene tranquillity, dimly lit and silent, the gallery space appears to lure the audience in. Nine screens are scattered throughout the main gallery space, each depicting an unknown sleeping face. Directly in front of the screens, beams of light create platforms, areas in which to stand. The implied dictation of these lights is our first hint at an ongoing theme within the exhibition, the implicit reliance upon an audience’s innate understanding and performance of predicted behaviours.
The intention of the work is to create a relationship between piece and audience, where one directly inspires another, attempting to construct an interface which transcends the barrier between the virtual and the real; the proposed relationship is intended to reflect the human patterns of behaviour during discourse. Motion detectors and cameras are integrated into each individual screen, triggered by an audience member standing within the sensitive area highlighted by the aforementioned light beams. Slight movements by the participant wake the sleeping character, assuming audience participation, from this point on a dialogue is created. Attempting to mirror humanistic visual dialogue, a sequence of pre-recorded emotions are perpetuated from each individual screen. However, what makes Prototype 9 more sophisticated than previous attempts by The Chameleon Project, is the software’s ability to respond intelligibly. Instead of simply copying a stimuli’s emotion, aesthetic or characteristics; Prototype 9 attempts instead to appease an audience; not to emulate, but to respond. This fusion between the scientific and the emotional is one of the first experiments of it’s type within not only the arts, but equally the scientific world. Using a purpose built Facial Emotion Analyser, the artwork attempts to mirror human dialogue, the interactive nature of the work forces not only each individual interaction, but also every day in the gallery to be immersed in a different feeling, a different pace, a difference tone. It is this notion that allows Prototype 9, along with every other of The Chameleon Project’s endeavours, to develop.
It has been stated by Gonsalves that the emotional transference between the audience and piece is a ‘search for empathy’, our chosen character is designed to comfort us, to understand and share our feelings. Both at the time, and in hindsight, this intention is comprehended; I understand it on a quantifiable level. However, my experience of Prototype 9 was not understood, or processed, with a sense of empathy or understanding. As I stood in front of the screens, interacted, attempted interface, comfort was not something that was extended to me. Despite the enticing and impressive ‘bright lights’ of the software’s capability, after intrigue, there was nothing but an acute sense of isolation. It was clear that the intentions of the artist were to produce a virtual being that was capable of empathetically adapting to my visual emotions, paired with the cross disciplinary foundation of the piece, was meant to combine to create a sense of emotional contagion. However, the virtual portraits were not capable of emulating the sense of humanism which is intrinsically apparent in face to face human interaction. At times the digital responses seemed provocative, almost antagonistic, the computer was able to process my emotion on a clinical level, however, the main basis of human interaction in relation to empathy being one of paralleled conclusion, assurance, the fact that Prototype 9 was not capable of extending sympathy, was for me the most disappointing aspect of the exhibition.
It is not just the software’s capability that at times let’s Prototype 9 down, the aesthetics and spacing are at times awkward. The suspended screens are presumably intended to parallel an average dimension, with faces hanging at times above, below, attempting to appease all, the oversized displays of raw human emotion are not only overwhelming, but at times intimidating. The 3-Dimensional nature of previous prototypes is also lost within the latest venture, the increasingly apparent 2-Dimensional nature of the work builds to create a direct contradiction between intentions of the work set forward by Gonsalves and the reality of the audience’s experience. The lighting of not the gallery, but the visuals is at times cold and unforgiving, only reiterating the difference between the virtual and real, a sense of vulnerability is completely overlooked in the presentation of the videos, despite the assumed reality of emotions upon filming.
Although at times dissatisfied with the reality of the exhibition compared to the proposed ideology, it would be unfair and inappropriate of me to totally discredit the work of The Chameleon Project’s latest endeavour. As a whole, I feel that the scientific advancements of the latest exhibition outweigh the sociological and emotional progression. There are also certain ideas which we’re emulated by the experience of Prototype 9, that, although not entirely intentional, still allow the audience to experience and re-evaluate some of the foundations of communication. If nothing else, I have come away from Fabrica Gallery intrinsically aware of a new understanding and comforting reasoning behind visual dialogue, the true sense of empathy; the notion that we all strive to achieve a neutral and balanced state of feeling, we all want the same conclusion; ‘we all want everything to be okay’.
