What does it mean to be a Chinese Computer? While it has been heavily disputed in the past and then generally ignored today, I find John Searle’s “Chinese Room” thought experiment to be an interesting starting point to engage with as a Chinese person (I was born in Hong Kong). I am also curious about what it means philosophically and technologically for someone to understand a language, especially with the existence of language models such as GPT-3.
For 2022-2023 at LACMA, I am proposing to create a fully-immersive model of the Chinese Room where people can physically enter, with options to interact with “Chinese” digital humans through talking, typing, watching, listening, and more, as we explore the possibilities of existence and play within Web3 (Web2.5?).
Technologically, I am curious about combining digital human avatars (Metahumans in Unreal Engine) with GPT-3 (which will require a lot of other smaller things), maybe something like this example by Armaan Priyadarshan. https://youtu.be/wtv_043sIrg
Philosophically, I am curious about the difference between being on the “outside” of the Chinese Room as opposed to being inside of it, if cognition/consciousness was still indeed thought of in this Searlean way. That aside, in what ways can a digital avatar really be an extension of a human? What does it mean ontologically to converse with GPT-3? Are there philosophical differences between the way in which language is derived with GPT-3 and humans? What about the philosophical significance of driving and emoting a digital avatar using a facial mocap system? The list goes on, and I am more than curious to explore and research in this manner.
A rendition of “Chinese Room” occurred on March 28, 2022 at Automata, an artist-run gallery in Los Angeles, where the “Chinese Room” avatar was in conversation with “table”, a Chicago-based project where sincere and critical conversations would occur over custom-made dinners in the presence of resident artists’ fully installed work in the space. In our case, table, being hosted by Automata Theater, hosted Chinese Room, which then in turn hosted a lively durational conversation between two friends, using the avatar’s body as the “Room”, Chinese or not. This became a video installation in the gallery space while a custom made meal of faces (Beef Cheeks) and displaced and delicious food from no single cultural origin was organized into a custom 5 course meal throughout the night while we chatted about things which we otherwise would not have chatted about.
This rendition of the Chinese Room was important in the development of how a body, virtual or not, may act as a housing site for genuine human exchange and discourse. The “findings” are not totally complete, but there is a strong sense of where this work may head next, for which I am quite excited about.
(April 18, 2017)
In collaboration with Armen Avanessian, Markus Miessen, Beau Rhee, Mattin, Parches, and research platform “Perhaps it is high time for a xenoarchitecture to match”, an uniquely imaginative “speculative sense event” was envisioned and developed at Kaaitheater, Brussels.
https://www.e-flux.com/announcements/127721/perhaps-it-is-high-time-for-a-xeno-architecture-to-match/
[Tim Tsang Plays Tim Tsang: A Piano Recital] was first performed as a full-length piano recital almost 4 years ago on 2.27.2016 (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y-A0RPRGcBA). On 2.22.2020, Tim Tsang Plays Tim Tsang: A Piano Recital was performed again as a full-length piano recital (Wall1), but also as something else (Wall2), while still being a full-length piano recital (Wall 3)...
Game by Tim Tsang
Music and sound by Patrick Behnke and Tim Tsang
"BITCOIN HERO PLAYS PLATO'S CAVE" is a video non-game which was built to simulate the allegory of Plato's Cave in a 3D playable video game format, where you can control the main character - Bitcoin Hero - who is made of 100% Bitcoin. This video non-game piece, like Plato's Allegory of the Cave - deals with the transition between the 2D to the 3D world, truth, knowledge, reality, social exclusion, silence, loneliness, death, and what is "good" in the world. You might be able to walk through walls :)
*currently under development and may be available on major commercial platforms in the future (Apple store, Steam, Android, Windows...etc)
//
Displaced mirror-image, shadows remain intact. Are these bodies human? A black hero, fully branded but without a face, the body is what renders what is visible. Plato regards the sun as what renders all things visible. But what if we were born already seeing, already enlightened, one with the sunlight, and as we climb higher and higher into the cave of blindness we become all the more closer to the pile of bodies above, breathing but ignorant to the human condition?
From the sun onto the fire, and back again. Plato as an abstract god-entity whose existence matters by the Word, not by Plato the Person. If you leave the already-enlightened cave at this point, you fall back onto the mirror-plateau/platform of the Real, lit by the sun. A mirror reflects images of things, but what is a virtual mirror, a digital simulation of a mirror within a simulated world? What is the life of a mirror? is it “less than” which it reflects? Are the images generated inside the virtual mirror a true response of the happenings outside of it? Is it subservient to what is outside, and therefore forever inferior? Is the reflection of the hero less than the hero? Will AI ever have rights?
The mirror image in this simulated world not so much has a life of its own than that it is dyadically bound 2to the hero above in an intensified way, such that it is amplified - faster, stronger, more able, smarter, and exists even a little bit ahead in time, if time was/is indeed linear to begin with.
How we treat nonhumans is as important as how we treat humans, if not more important. If we treated nonhuman entities with the same care that we extend to ourselves in the first place, perhaps it would be illogical or even laughable to treat any fellow human in a “less than” human way, since there is no such thing as “less than human” in the first place. The bacteria inside of our guts is not inferior to us, but we are dyadically bound to each other.
The virtual mirror reminds us that the materiality of the mirror is bound to the materiality of the things in the world, to us, to dead cells, dead bodies, to "inanimate" entities. Another way to speak this is that sentience is not reliant upon the retinal, but what is felt.
The term “entity” is used, so that a “thing” may be a being or organism, but also may be a collection of ideas, a piece of technology, a virtual thing. In this sense, the appearance of Bitcoin (or cryptocurrency at large) technology as a sort of faceless hero arises - namely, some “one”, not necessarily brave or courageous nor of noble character, but who nonetheless fights for a cause, attempting to let money be money, a mere form of exchange between peers and not anything more. If money is truly money, then perhaps humans can also be humans, not more, not less.
The question is less "does it have consciousness", or even "is it capable of feeling?”, but merely “is it capable?” We already know that silence is not neutral, but who knew you could climb nothingness?
#HYPERTEXTEDIT (2014+)
is both a verb as well as a noun. As a verb, #HYPERTEXTEDIT is a form of psychic-typing or live-transcription process, responding to verbal, written, unspoken conscious thoughts as well as intuitive observations about one’s physical and digital surroundings, coupled with sporadic google searches and deep dives on the internet, not always in a foreseeable, reasonable manner, but mostly relying on intuition and responding to observations and environmental stimuli. This is most often done in while in a state of trance, and only comprehended later. The output of this process usually ends with a raw screen recording video, however long (anywhere from 60 seconds to 8 hours so far). These video recordings are usually sped up and compressed to durations of 4 minutes and 33 seconds, a quiet nod to John Cage’s infamous 4’33” composition.
There is a growing archive (noun) of over 100 video #HYPERTEXTEDIT recordings:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLoVTJYgZk_I4AYHd0t6kFn04DpHqpIhjm
This peculiar technique/method of being (verb) has been very friendly to collaboration, and has been used and performed in gallery installations, live performances, live lectures, symposiums, book transcripts, crowd transcriptions, facebook groups, discussions, live streams, and more. A well-known example would be “Xenoarchitecture” (2017), a collaboration with the philosopher Armen Avanessian and architect Markus Miessen (Kaaitheater, Brussels), amongst other artists, composers and more from various countries —> https://youtu.be/d6RPyX7p0nc
Originally intended as a joke during the recent NFT-craze, this musical composition//video (also an NFT) was premiered at The Royal Academy of Music in Aarhus, Denmark in June 2021 as part of an annual festival focused on multimedia music.
To view NFT click here
WHAT MAKES YOUR GARDEN GROW? -A live drop-in conversation about Creativity, Games, Change, and Time
November 8, 2020
Hosted by Elizabeth Michelman and Tim Tsang
as part of Waltham Mills Open Studios 2020
Reiview on Artscope Magazine:
https://artscopemagazine.com/2020/12/whats-an-open-studios-for-waltham-mills-virtual-event-leads-the-way-expands-audience/?fbclid=IwAR2A9fplpRupScihWhIzqUJlXAq0ggV4X9aLn2qVQbV16YJVpgqZq-qaJn0
John’s Cage (2012-Present)
is an ongoing inquiry dedicated to explore Music, Sound, Noise, Time, Clock Time, and Clocks. This inquiry has resulted in over 50 live performances, sound recordings, videos, open concepts, writings, lecture-performances, discussions, and more. A complete list is available upon request.
chance encounters for a third try: attempting a house party on the moon
By Kyle Bellucci Johanson
Text below taken from https://kylejohanson.com/private/629894873207701504/tumblr_WdDuEvgxiwvoFTkxK
06/20/2020 Attempt No. 01: value and people
07/04/2020 Attempt No. 02: timespacematters
07/18/2020 Attempt No. 03: systems of cultural production
this work was commissioned for the exhibition: Another Idea, an actual conceptual art exhibition, organized by Zachary Cahill and Michael Schuh The Gray Center for Arts and Inquiry University of Chicago, Chicago IL
//
chance encounters for a third try: attempting a house party on the moon is a performance architecture in which my flat in Chicago was reconstructed on the surface of the moon – Earth’s natural satellite. I imagine, with the cosmic radiation and ultraviolet light, there isn’t any Covid-19 on the moon so it’s probably a good place for a house party. I originally went to the moon back in July of 2019, to see if it was a site for revolutionary becoming, and if it could offer possibilities outside of subjugation and capitalism that feel impossible on earth. This may be a good time to revisit those questions. What does it mean to “be together?” What do we do when we can’t do what we do?
This architecture was activated three times over the course of June and July 2020, in order to attempt a house party on the moon, the first-second-third of its kind (but that doesn’t really matter).
Each attempt hosted various activities to uncover the necessary and sufficient conditions of a house party. This site-responsive work/party dwelled on the various roles that isolation, distance, and technology play regarding daily social life and domestic experience for people on Earth. Have we found ourselves in a time and space when matters of existence have never been more precarious and policed, isolated and interconnected, informative and confusing? We’ve witnessed black death, gone live, worn our masks, hidden inside our apartments, assembled in our streets, filed for unemployment, zoomed out, baked bread, sanitized, and got thoroughly screened, but there is still no vaccine.
So we came, had a drink, listened to the DJ’s music, danced, were wallflowers, smoked on the porch, caught another’s eyes, and had a chance encounter. We lingered in the kitchen, if you felt antisocial there were plenty of books and places to snoop around. Oh, and Tim asked if he could use the bathroom. We talked about what we care most about, we imagined the future, and contended with what we never really left behind. Maybe we found new comrades, maybe we found work, maybe we found life together, in many ways we surely failed.
After all, we were all beside ourselves.
The house architecture used for the third attempted house party can be accessed through the following site: partyonthemoon.house
This work would not have been possible without the participation, collaboration, contribution, and support of these lunar and terra comrades:
Tim Tsang, Vlad Avesalon, Tyler Ann Liegmann, Samuel Zalanga, Adam Feldmeth, Charles Gaines, Nyeema Morgan, txgen meyer, Andre Keichian, Carmen Amengual, Mary Coyne, Gabriela Barreto Lemos, Gregory Bae, Joestine Con-ui, Lily Kind, Liang Luscombe, Paul Rosero Contreras, Sherwin Ovid, Anna Pangalou, Sebastian, Tamara Becerra Valdez, Smokee Goddinson, Annika Haas, Matthew Lax, Will Lee, Zachary Cahil, and Mike Schuh
The work was documented through the following screen shots and written reflections made by people who attended the attempted house parties.
Throughout the year of 2018 Parch Es and I have co-created a piece called (presencia (o ausencia) según conveniencia). We have performed this piece exactly 11 or 5 times, each time vastly different and consistent.
What is 5walls? (Experimental Talking with Live Avatar)
A live re-staging/reading of a transcription of a conference call between the co-incidence festival founders/organizers Luke Martin and Aaron Foster Breilyn and 2019 resident artist Sarah Pitan. Luke, Aaron, and Sarah read their own parts - things they said one year prior.
5walls(interview):
Live Re-staging/Reading of a Conference call
As part of
the co-incidence festival at Washington Street Art Center (Somerville, MA)
Guest Artist Showcase Concert
01.12.2019
www.coincidencefestival.com
https://youtu.be/2FootbFuax8
Txgen Meyer and Tim Tsang co-labor to gather a gathering with guests Reza Negarestani, Taylor Adkins, HE VALENCIA, CMRN, @dickophrenic, Dalia Barghouty, and more.
https://youtu.be/Ykn1YVC0tmA
https://www.facebook.com/events/1294145290976281
https://schizoanalytic.wordpress.com/2020/05/05/notes-from-a-gathering/
(Sept 2019 to June 2020)
Co-hosting monthly talk shows with Scarlett Kim at Automata Theater, Los Angeles, with a wide range of guests, from Hollywood Actors to Scientists to Philosophers to Pet Owners. Shows are live taped and set to be released by September 2020.
(July 20, 2019)
Hosted by MOCAM (Museum of Contemporary Art on the Moon) and Automata Theater, this project was a collaboration with Kyle Bellucci Johanson to create a long-form performative activity, featuring a 8 hour live talk show//picnic, in celebration of the 50th anniversary of Apollo 11. The guests, hosted both in person and through virtual means, were invited to come talk about ideas/politics/culture in a transtemporal and personal kind of way.
mocam.space
https://www.facebook.com/events/869965893362096/
Tim Tsang engages with Scarlett Kim and Sarah Pitan as an attempt to “explain” what 5walls is, while also trying to engage with on live camera with Galerija Reflektor (Uzice, Serbia) existing as an art piece at the opening in Serbia.
5walls is a long-form intimate exchange witnessed by 2 people or more. Driven by a sincere attempt at creating and practicing honest communal presence with friends and strangers which invites intensity, intimacy, reflexivity, and care, 5walls is a working theory there are at least 5 ways of engaging with what a “thing" is. Starting in 2018, exchanges with 5walls have manifested as performances, events, games, and art exhibitions internationally. 5walls is currently in residence at Automata, hosting monthly events in 2020.
https://hyperallergic.com/481241/project-scream-navel/
https://www.facebook.com/events/157558051854308/
(2015 to Present)
is a group of 4 friends (Ben Finley, Amy Golden, Patrick Behnke, Tim Tsang) who are committed to the unique act of “talkingtalking” as a collective performance practice to know each other better in private and in public settings. Our recent performance in February 2019 created new friendships and revitalized old ones within the Arts community in Los Angeles.
Sitting on the panel at SAIC’s “Quantum Unlearning” Conference on Quantum Physics and Art, I silently performed live #HYPERTEXTEDIT for the entire conference, psychically and musically transcribing/responded to the content and happenings of the entire event. This was projected alongside each speakers’ Slides.
https://www.saic.edu/academics/areasofstudy/artandscience/conversationsonartandscienceseries/events/quantum-unlearning
2people3rdspace5thwall @ Exit Interview, 06.22.2016 (Kyle Johanson, Tim Tsang)
- - -
Tim and Kyle walk and talk and listen and look with each other through the works of Exit Interview. The activity is recorded on two head mounted cameras and later replayed in an audio/video/text format.
A very performative performance about “non-performance”, heavily inspired by the non-philosophy of Francois Laruelle. (2017)
Tim Tsang and Friends present:
"For the Sake of Everything"
-- a 57 minute dialogue, to be improvised between soprano, violist, bassist, pianist, and peoples with microphones, to be performed for CalArts friends and the general public. (Followed immediately by a Q&A session)
09.30.2015 @ CalArts
![Karl Marx "CAPITAL" Chapter 2: Process of Exchange [RealReal Reading Series by Chinese Room]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b4d782f365f0227c95dfc4f/1680928620513-2BGOIOGRV604C7IH3ADL/image-asset.jpeg)
![5walls with Anna Pangalou, #ONE [05.1.2020]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/5b4d782f365f0227c95dfc4f/1614312960850-HVU806AR3AMWGFJVFXL6/image-asset.png)
