Wood St. romances the software

“Can We Fall In Love With a Machine?”

Through April 1

Wood Street Galleries

601 Wood St…. “Can We Fall In Love With a Machine?”

Through April 1

Wood Street Galleries

601 Wood St.

(412) 471-5605

If you’re the sort of person who harbors an appreciation for outdated technologies – perhaps you have a nostalgic yearning for what tech-junkies dub “obsolete” – consider a jaunt to Wood Street Galleries, where you can interact with a cyber president, a biologically responsive woman and a rather touchy fellow behind a computer screen.

Can we fall in love with a machine? I certainly didn’t. I actually found myself intensely frustrated with my inability to decipher a conversation with cyber-president candidate “Dina,” conceptualized by Lynn Hershman Leeson.

Dina asked, “What is your name?”

My reply: “Katie.”

“Cibi, I was wondering what it was you did.”

“I’m a student.”

“Go on,” she said. “The anticipation is killing me.”

“I’m a student -“

“But I did not get your name – what could improve your life?”

“A better diet.”

“Are you awake?”

And to humor myself, I continued with a disengaged, “Yes.”

“We need to learn to love cybers. They are our future.”

In fact, our exchange was quite realistic: A politician evading a superficial conversation isn’t so far from reality.

A promising video/sound installation titled “Bodymaps,” created by Thecla Shiphorst in 1996, sparked my interest when motion sensors detected movement across the room, triggering an amalgamation of sound and video activity.

On a table in the middle of the gallery space a woman in a gossamer gown was projected onto a table. There seemed to be little chance for the observer to interact with her until I realized that several of the docents were concerned that the technology behind it needed repairs.

Apparently, the surface of the table was (when functioning properly) touch-sensitive, and each sensor caused a different sound or video reaction. When repaired, hopefully it will entice the impatient gallerygoer to approach in expectation of immediate, touch-sensitive, gratification. It’s a nifty, interactive novelty in practice – however, it admittedly doesn’t do much when malfunctioning.

Lynn Hughes and Simon Laroche’s “Perversely Interactive System” (2003), taps into the human psyche by reading stress levels through a bio-feedback handset.

The figure of a woman with her back facing me stood at a distance on a projection screen. Once the handset detected a decrease in heart rate, she would approach. Finally, I began to count backward from 10 and, eventually, she pivoted around with a smirk, confidently walking toward me.

“Syntonie,” by Jean Dubois, 2001-2002, offered an interactive video with a touch screen. The man behind the screen comes into focus immediately once you tap or touch him, and depending on where your finger tickles, you might trigger him to lick the screen, a wholly embarrassing reaction if another gallerygoer is in your midst.

I discovered in his cache of expressions tempting smirks, angry scowls and jarring flashes of red. Toying with our most primitive, ingrained sensitivities, this work reminded me that we are hypersensitive to body language rather than verbal communication – a very animal notion.

While the pieces themselves are from a bygone age in terms of programming, the exhibit questions the relationship between man and machine explored by intellectuals since the Industrial Revolution.

Can a machine programmed to trigger desire, shame, engagement, disgust and discomfort arouse in the participant primitive, wanton attraction? Or even affection?

We need our iPods and BlackBerrys – but do we love them? Personally, the closest I’ve ever come to loving a machine was my Furby in the 8th grade, until it began to speak in tongues and turn demonic.

I’m a tech-illiterate woman with no computer skills besides my killer proficiency in word processing: 70 words per minute! And, like the rest of our movie-loving, computer-hugging culture, I’m spoiled by the flashy and tediously programmed CGI effects of elaborate Pixar films.

I apologize to the artist/innovators of “Can We Fall in Love with a Machine?” for having to yield to the jaded class of the easily distracted and impatiently entertained.