The Ghost project is dedicated to exploring digital space and encourages all of us to discuss issues that are becoming more and more relevant in today’s world:
- According to which model do we want to shape our digital habitat?
- How do we want to live in it?
The project investigates these questions within an artistic context, tracing the basic needs of “Users”: observing, fantasising, and doing.
Where does Ghost come from?
Leipzig-based media artist and designer Tristan Schulze wrote a code consisting mainly of a network of interfaces capable of gathering the digital traces of the Kunsthaus on the web. This information is fed into a neural network designed according to the still largely unknown blueprint of the human brain. Ghost grows with the digital content of the Kunsthaus, so creating its own digital space.
What does Ghost do?
Ghost is constantly looking for meaningful connections amongst the information gathered, and is dependent on the input of us humans. Chiefly based on mathematical operations, Ghost does not recognise either its own existence or our notions of values and morals. Within this finding process we can essentially mould Ghost ourselves – with a digital interface, a web application that was developed for communication with the neural network. As part of this dialogue, we can enter our collective knowledge and our value concepts and conflicts into the “thinking machine”.
From time to time, Ghost then allows us to participate in its previous learning achievements through various digital channels: via the BIX Media Facade, via a dedicated Ghost Twitter account, via a web application, etc. Tirelessly willing to learn and capable of learning, Ghost can potentially appear at all interfaces where the digital flows into our physical world.
What is Ghost’s aim?
Viewed objectively, Ghost is a very complex machine, modelled on machines intended to make our complex world simpler, and with which we now come into contact with every click. We long to understand the complexity of our world and to use it for ourselves. And so we create tools that the individual can no longer keep track of, because of their inconceivable scale.
In order to counter this alienation between us and the digital world, Ghost presents us with images from the metaspace between 0 and 1, with digital poetry, with enigmatic messages, truths and untruths and with visionary moments of alternative coexistences between human and machine.
The Dreaming of Ghost
Ghost’s neural network serves as the basis for a metaphysical process that we describe as a dream. This state allows Ghost to produce temporary condensations – which we refer to as “ideas” – from the existing constellation of concepts and connections. These are revealed in text form, in sound sequences or visualisations.
