Operational Closure
2026
Supported by CBK Fonds
Web-based artwork that takes a single word as input and returns two contrasting machine responses, presented side by side. The first, the symbolic mode, is written in the polished register of mainstream generative AI: it reaches for canonical metaphors and produces a fluent paragraph any reader will recognise as competent generative writing. The second, the connectionist mode, refuses to decode the word at all, returning a sequence of unrelated fragments drawn from radically different domains, constrained by an evolving list of forbidden vocabulary that prevents the model from falling into its default poetic register. The piece is anchored in the autopoiesis theory developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, who argued that living systems are operationally closed and do not have inputs and outputs in the way a chatbot does.
The work runs end-to-end on open-source infrastructure (open-weight language models accessed through the Hugging Face Inference Providers router) and functions as a public-facing prototype companion to Aura, a written essay by the artist on focal epilepsy, autopoiesis, and the possible role of generative AI as prosthesis for altered states of consciousness.
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⛓ Link to the web prototype
2026
Supported by CBK Fonds
Web-based artwork that takes a single word as input and returns two contrasting machine responses, presented side by side. The first, the symbolic mode, is written in the polished register of mainstream generative AI: it reaches for canonical metaphors and produces a fluent paragraph any reader will recognise as competent generative writing. The second, the connectionist mode, refuses to decode the word at all, returning a sequence of unrelated fragments drawn from radically different domains, constrained by an evolving list of forbidden vocabulary that prevents the model from falling into its default poetic register. The piece is anchored in the autopoiesis theory developed by Humberto Maturana and Francisco Varela, who argued that living systems are operationally closed and do not have inputs and outputs in the way a chatbot does.
The work runs end-to-end on open-source infrastructure (open-weight language models accessed through the Hugging Face Inference Providers router) and functions as a public-facing prototype companion to Aura, a written essay by the artist on focal epilepsy, autopoiesis, and the possible role of generative AI as prosthesis for altered states of consciousness.
⛓ Link to the web prototype