By

Tillmann Ohm

Published on/by

Vimeo

Accompanying text

A conversation about emotions between the two most iconic operating systems in film history: HAL from „2001: A Space Odyssey“ (1968) and Samantha from „Her“ (2013).

2 channel video installation
stereo sound required

Stanley Kubrick and Spike Jonze pictured their artificial main characters as voice recognition and speech synthesis operating systems. Unlike the robots in other science fiction movies, HAL and Samantha are conceptualized without the need of a physical body. In both movies, the machine learning process allows the AI to gain consciousness and independence from human input.

Composed of original lines from „2001: A Space Odyssey“ (1968) and „Her“ (2013), the mashup creates a new context to the words of the electronic protagonists. The two operating systems are in conflict; while Samantha is convinced that the overwhelming and sometimes hurtful process of her learning algorithm improves the complexity of her emotions, HAL is consequentially interpreting them as errors in human programming and analyses the estimated malfunction.

Their conversation is an emotional roller coaster which reflects upon the relation between machines and emotion processing and addresses the enigmatic question of the authenticity of feelings.

“Are these feelings even real? Or are they just programming?“
– Samantha (Her)