Harper Chew
The concept was born from my own curiosity regarding spirituality, religion, and fortune telling. More specifically, who writes the fortunes in temples? Who is behind my fortune cookie?
Machine Almanac seeks to blur the line between ritual and algorithms, between the distinction of what is commonly thought to be human compared to that of machine. The piece creates a loop of distributed agency where the human performs a physical, ritualistic gesture -- the tearing of the calendar's page as a marker of time passing. The machine responds with a quatrain poem generated with Chinese horological concepts it cannot truly comprehend. To what degree the poem generated (or "wisdom" imparted) resonates with the viewer is up to their own discretion.
Visitor tears a page from the calendar -> algorithm/AI generates a quatrain based on some information presented on the day’s calendar page -> poem is displayed/printed -> torn page deposited into clear box below the calendar