Automated Archiving

A chatbot for Mouchette (in collaboration with Leo Scarin)

Mouchette her website is  a labyrinth full of secrets and surprises, her homepage is full of hidden links, a place of unexpected adventures for the curious ones.

She has dialogues by means of micro-narratives like this one “Lullaby for a dead Fly”, and the viewer’s entries  become part of the work

She has a huge database of entries by users. The core of Mouchette is an organised archive. (password)
That allows to create new works, re-using the entries received into a different stage.
Catalogue images of these animated works

Interest in the performative power of language (Jabberwocky, Markov chainer),
Mouchette’s first talking robots are from 1997 Wattlechick 

Wattlechick (sound file)

This chatbot is motivated by the desire to re-conquer the richness and variety of combination of the browser page language that I used to know and practice in the early time of net.art. Now everything online has become so standardised through platforms. How to create a conversational bot that makes use, beyond the verbal, of a rich digital language: graphics, animations, sounds  all part of the conversation, like the body language mixes words with the voice, the intonation, the body presence and gestures to create a complete exchange.

From a medium to the next one: how a work of art finds a new life in a new medium, like from a book to a film, everything is different, the context is different, but how do you keep the spirit? What elements of Mouchette character and identity are consciously transposed: her cheekyness, her humour, her dark aspects, her recklessness, and sassy etc…. References exchanged, between Leo and me weekly meetings of online talk and tests…
Be our testers…