Planet Digital – Zurich

BeAnotherLab presents The Autonomous Machine. Our most recent development, The Autonomous Machine works like the system of The Machine To Be Another. It facilitates body swaps between two people in real-time. However, it operates without the two assistants facilitating the interaction between the two users. Participants are on their own, the machine becomes the sole mediator of interaction. An exploration of where else we could take the blurring of boundaries between Self and Other.

The installation is particularly attractive as a long-term or permanent exhibit in an institutional context. We launched the Autonomous Machine at the Planet Digital exhibition at the Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich (11/2 – 6/6/22). Designed to work without the assistance of human performers, the system allowed visitors to experience the Body Swap during the four months of the exhibition in Zürich.

Can algorithms be fair? Will artificial intelligence make everything else superfluous? Is there such a thing as media truth? And what do lava lamps have to do with data protection?

From rare earths to gigantic server landscapes and from technical gadgets to social questions: Planet Digital puts our digital present and future under the microscope. Starting from 23 current research projects by their most creative minds, the exhibition takes the public along on a sightseeing tour of the world of digitalization.

Planet Digital is organized by the University of Zurich and the Museum für Gestaltung, Zürich in collaboration with Zurich University of the Arts ZHdK, Zurich University of Applied Sciences and AlgorithmWatch Switzerland.