The Alan01 installation is open for public August 17 – September 9, 2009, between 9:00-17:00 at Media Centre Lume (University of Art and Design Helsinki), Hämeentie 135 C.
Alan Turing
(1912-1954) was a heroic wartime code-breaker and pioneer of computer science. He made a provocative contribution to the debate regarding artificial intelligence: whether it will ever be possible to say that a machine is conscious and can think. As a person he was “an ordinary English homosexual atheist mathematician” (A. Hodges). Besides Turing’s achievements, his sexual orientation lead to prosecution, probation and chemical castration. Alan died after eating an apple laced with cyanide. His death was ruled a suicide.
Crucible Studio
explores, defines and creates new forms of storytelling in dialogue with new media and traditions of drama. Founded in 2002, the research studio is situated between the Media Lab and Media Centre Lume of the University of Art and Design Helsinki, which provides a unique environment where professionally equipped and maintained production facilities are linked with a content-led, practice-based and multidisciplinary research group. The Turing productions are produced within the SALERO (Semantic AudiovisuaL Entertainment Reusable Objects) project, co-funded by the European Union through the IST programme under FP6.
The Alan01 installation
engages interactive audience in dialogue with a fictional Alan, as if Turing’s consciousness had been coded into a machine at the time of his death. The interactor can “talk” to Alan01 by a system of symbols, which we imagine to have been relevant to Alan Turing’s life. The symbol combinations are signalled visibly via light to a media retrieval system. Alan01 deciphers the symbols by a collage of animations projected on the busts of Alan (Hannu Kivioja), screened videos and audio feedback including speech synthesis.
The experimental production investigates associational storytelling and interaction structures, while making the patterns of human-machine communication more visible. The experimental cross media production series also includes the Turing Machine multimedia opera that was released with Ooppera Skaala in April 2008.
AlanOnline will also be developed further during the summer, but the first public version is now open:
mlab.taik.fi/alanonline/flash/
PS. Alan in Taide & Design Magazine 1st issue