corpuscleConnections::an_afferent_analysis
CODE + SENSORY NETWORK
This work used 5 force sensor resistors to pick up pressure inputs from tactile participants. The sculpture algorithmically processed the input - the amount of force, the number of inputs, the location - using a model inspired by biological mechanisms of processing tactile input. In particular, the idea that greater force = greater pain - with pain thresholds varying in location, and incorporating the perceptive difference felt by c-fibre vs alpha delta fibre stimulation. Also the gate-control theory of pain was implemented, where light tactile experience in conjunction with a painful stimuli lessened the perception of pain.
The fleshy membrane outputted a text based response to the tactile experience. The words were poetic, and constructed with the help of chatGPT. It used the imagined experience of being constructed - the cutting, eyelet adding, glueing, welding, grinding, soldering - to convey metaphor based understandings of pleasure or pain.
In addition, a mood was embedded into the code. Using a counter, the code remembered the number of times it had been touched ‘badly’. If the sculpture was mishandled too much, it would enter an endless while loop of pain, outputting only existential expressions of hurt. An endless while loop is one of chatGPT’s conceptions of AI hell.
SCULPTURE
Buttery insulation with pink flesh slices encased in copper were used in the work to represent pacinian corpuscles, an afferent ending responsible for feelings of pressure. Insulation, the buffer in constructed houses, acted as the fatty phospholipids in cellular membranes, and the copper the ion transporting shell. The natural organic polymer of latex was used for it’s fleshy vulnerability and linkage with rubber in electronic skin designs.
This exhibition was presented at Post Office Projects, Port Adelaide, South Australia and supported by a Helpmann residency at George st Studios and ArtSA through POP.
