ZOLTÁN SZEGEDY-MASZÁK / RÓBERT LANGH / MÁRTON FERNEZELYI / RICHARD ACZEL – SMALLTALK 3.0

Interactive computer installation, 2007

In Smalltalk, two computer programs chat with each other on the sub­ject the visitor has selected. The leading sentence which can be selected on the touch-screen of the computer interface sets off the conversation, in the course of which the robots try to expound upon each other's reactions, and to keep the conversation going via the formation of increasingly appropriate responses. Their sentence-interpretational capacities based on mechanical symbol-reduction, precisely due to their misinterpretations, are frequently capable of producing variegated chatter for a longer or shorter period of time, which, upon entering into self-repetitions, reaches its end: upon registering such phenomena, the robots - in lack of a better solution, often provoking arguments - try to end the conversation as soon as possible.

Text: Zoltán Szegedy-Maszák