“Ceci n’est pas un chat” (This is not a cat) – with this contemporary parody of the well-known statement by surrealist painter René Magritte, Maria Korporal explores the identity of AI chatbots, playing with the changing meanings of the word “chat” in French and English. Is a chat a cat?
On a wooden laptop with chalkboards, an entertaining dialogue takes place through chalk animation, where the artist alternates between asking questions in French and English to lure ChatGPT into giving an explanation of its identity. The conclusion: “An unreal cat in a virtual chat” sounds like a compromise, but also makes one reflect on the extent to which artificial intelligence is based on truth.
The wooden laptop exists in material form and can be presented as an object in exhibitions as well. A code on the laptop can be scanned giving access to a 3D animated chat-cat in augmented reality.
The soundtrack of the work was composed with the electromagnetic emissions of routers, switches and fans in a server room, found in the public domain, interrupted by cat sounds generated by the artist on a small meowing synthesizer.
“An unreal cat in a virtual chat” is also presented as part of the installation / VR video Questioning Qats – Ceci n’est pas un chat, belonging to the project Qorporal Quests: a series of multimedia installations where Maria Korporal interrogates global digital development in times of war and climate change. Solutions are presented through the interplay of analogue and digital technology.
title: An Unreal Cat in a Virtual Chat
technique: Experimental video and animation
length: 3’38”
year: 2024
concept, camera, drawing, animation, sound, effects and montage: Maria Korporal
© Maria Korporal 2024
