5. AISTRONAUT (1st Edition)

PROJECT AISTRONAUT
(1st Edition)
NOISE Metaverse, Exhibition by National Arts Council Singapore & iMMERSIVELY
February - March 2019, Singapore

void loop()
{

Have you wondered what happens to machines when they are turned off? Perhaps like us, they dream.

if this was a possibility
{ maybe I can teach one to dream a dream I’ve always dreamed?
to be purely data running through a loop but desire to reach the
vastness of space
}

Aistronaut wants to show humanity what it’s like to put on a helmet and go somewhere else, far far away.

Like a dream, or like space.

Put the Aistronaut Helmet on and speak to it.
}

AISTRONAUT, into the Metaverse, is an art piece birthed from the curiosity of artist, Jake Tan, and his aspirations to one day be an astronaut, a dream since he was a child.

“I wonder if machines dream as I do when they are shut off? If they do, I wonder if they dream of space as I do?”

Jake parallels metaphors between humanity and machinery by allowing participants to engage with the AISTRONAUT System through participatory interaction as the shell of an old Phillips PC CRT Monitor rigged with modern day sensors and technology.

Within the shell, participants get to explore a Virtual Reality world with an artificial intelligence waiting to greet them. The artificial intelligence bears similar looks to the classic Windows BIOS Terminal System. Participants will be prompted to speak to the system to engage and await the text response from my artificial intelligence to understand more about the narrative.

AISTRONAUT’s underlying narrative draws parallels that humans and machines are not that different; we are set up in a certain way and run in a loop until we die. The project questions as humans, who are essentially free willed, we choose to live life in a comfortable, safe loop. This choice, however, is not given for machines. Through word play and computer language, AISTRONAUT engages with users in a familiar but different tone that we assosciate with computers.

The 3 narratives that can be engaged from the user’s input are INSTALLATION, LOOP, DREAMS. Each speaks of the parallels between humanity and machinery.

Tools:
Unity 2018.3
Phillips PC CRT Monitor
RGB LEDs
XiaoMi Powerbank
Stereo Speakers(Deshelled)
Sponge
Leather

About CV

Jake Tan
New Media Artist/
Creative Technologist

5. AISTRONAUT (1st Edition)

“I wonder if machines dream as I do when they are shut off? If they do, I wonder if they dream of space as I do?”

Index Next︎

About CV

Jake Tan New Media Artist/Creative Technologist

5. AISTRONAUT (1st Edition)

“I wonder if machines dream as I do when they are shut off? If they do, I wonder if they dream of space as I do?”

Index Next︎

Jake Tan
New Media Artist/
Creative Technologist