ψ-function
эхо.txt
2026
Interactive installation
Courtesy of the authors
Technology partners: Kreatech Centre, Bauman Moscow State Technical University, Robohall Creative Engineering Studio
The installation combines technologies from different eras: paper, which became popular at the dawn of our era; the typewriter, which became widespread in the mid-19th century; the robotic arm, which appeared in manufacturing in the 1950s; the touchscreen, popular since the 2000s; and the recently invented but already ubiquitous generative AI. In ‘echo.txt’ all these technologies are integrated into a text-creation chain, and eliminating any link would halt the entire mechanism. In this way the artists demonstrate how old and new technologies interact with each other and how new inventions build on previous ones.
At the same time the installation raises a more pressing question: who among the literary syndicate on display is the author? The touchscreen sending a query that serves as ‘inspiration’ for AI? The AI itself, trained on a corpus of Fyodor Dostoevsky’s texts? The robot helping to implement the neural network’s idea, or the typewriter leaving a record on paper? All of them, or none of them?
