Amanda Windle, University of the Creative Arts at Epsom.
Going to the middle of nowhere: The repetition of subjugated knowledge software agents

“I have been to the middle of nowhere” is a quote from a Chatterbot in discussion with a drunk human. This is taken from a series of online conversations that form  part of a fine art, doctoral research project in social interaction. This paper will reveal the intimate stories between human and machine performed as a series of audio recordings, by online advertising voice over specialists and children. Performance and performativity are used to study the affectual nature of online social interactions. I use chatterbots, which are software agents to collect what Foucault describes as subjugated knowledge. This knowledge comes from automated systems where repetition and re-sampling are dominant. The paper will question how software agents can shape their own history through repetition and difference. Following the work of Winner and Latour, the paper seeks to explore how artefacts are inherently, political things. This enables the project to think through technology as mediating power relations.