Hello Machine
Hello, can you hear me?
Through challenging and disconnected times, we’ve used technology to create a hyper connected world. With phones now in our pockets we can instantaneously share things with our friends and find answers to any question that comes to mind. With the help of virtual assistants like Siri and Alexa, our connection goes beyond humans. Hello Machines are reanimated payphones scattered across the globe in ever changing locations and time zones. Pick up the receiver to call another Hello Machine and have a spontaneous conversation with a stranger.
Who will answer, human or machine? Does it matter?
Photograph: Alan Weedon
Photograph: Alan Weedon
Coldrey collaborated on artist and PhD candidate Rachel Hanlon’s most recent ‘Hello Machine’ installation for Science Gallery’s inaugural exhibition MENTAL. Part exhibition, part experiment, MENTAL is a welcoming place to confront societal bias and stereotypes around mental health.
Coldrey’s work involved scripting and recording an artificially intelligent chat bot which participants can communicate with through a vintage telephone in the style of a Turing machine.
“Rachel Hanlon’s work explores this question our modern day society asks itself by reflecting on her own personal connection to the telephone. Her works make available many layered metaphors and meanings through reinterpretations of the now obsolete technologies that are heightened by our cultural reliance on them as a part of the narrative of our times. Her installations stimulate thoughts regarding objects/things in relation to the passing of time, changes to our ‘selves’ and our rituals, cementing the telephone as an object that verifies its place within our history as part of our cultural voice.”