Systems Say What Words Cannot

With Avi Alpert and Danny Snelson
In conjunction with User Agent
Curated by Rachel Valinsky
In association with NYPAC
Judson Memorial Church
March 29, 2015

In this performance-lecture, the three members of Research Service each deliver a brief statement on the relationship between automation and embodiment. Three virtual avatars choreograph their movements as they speak. Their instructions lead to variations on each lecture. This event commemorates the passing of Eugene Goostman.

About User Agent:
Curated by Rachel Valinsky, User Agent presents four works that interrogate our relationship to devices, software, and technological apparatuses, often complicating our perception of these systems’ cognitive faculties and capacity for agency. Derived from computing, the term “user agent” refers to software that acts on behalf of a user. In other words, the software is a performer, enacting a functional, operational task. Through a sustained engagement with the language and codes of these technologies, the pieces in User Agent blur the boundaries of user and agent, subject and object, agency and automation, and propose new ways we might consider the technologies that shape communication, movement, and speech.

User Agent features performances by Tyler Coburn, Ian Hatcher, Lanny Jordan Jackson, and Research Service.

See also:
Art in America, “The Agenda: This Week in New York”
Art F City, “This Week’s Must-see Art Events“