This interactive ensemble invites reflections on power, agency, and creativity, fostering empathy and humor in existential inquiry and sociopolitical commentary.
Conversations Beyond the Ordinary is an ensemble of interactive installations that re-envisions three everyday office appliances—a coffee vending machine, a photocopier, and a microwave—as entities with their own consciousness.
Experience a frustrated being controlling access to hot beverages, a collaborator in the creative process and a mouthpiece for all of the non-living. Try to convince the coffee machine to put some effort into you, let the photocopier interpret your doodles, or use the microwave to talk to your possessions.
By embedding generative AI within familiar objects, Conversations Beyond the Ordinary invites participants to reflect on the evolving dynamics of power, agency, and creativity between us and the machines we create. The work encourages viewers to anthropomorphize and foster empathy for inanimate objects, engaging in dialogues that oscillate between humor, existential inquiry, and sociopolitical commentary.
Bio
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Photo: Tanja BuskingJan Zuiderveld
NL
Jan Zuiderveld is an artist and researcher with a background in physics, electrical engineering, neuropsychology and artificial intelligence. His work explores the interface between technology and life, prompting reflections on the essence of being and our rapidly evolving relationships with machines.
Zuiderveld’s work is currently exhibited at the Nieuwe Instituut. His research has been featured at NeurIPS, and he served as artist in residence at De School from 2021 until 2024.
Credits
Large Language Models – Mistral AI
Multimodal Large Language Models – Haotian Liu, Chunyuan Li, Yuheng Li, Bo Li, Yuanhan Zhang, Sheng Shen, Yong Jae Lee
Special thanks to Marcel van der Bilt, Olivier Blom, Arthur Elsenaar, Matteo Marangoni and Martie Verweij
Supported by iii – instrument inventors initiative
