what do machines dream of
if not electric sheep
a remembrance
in the shape of
a butterfly, a tree
neurons turning
into trees
trees into waves
so many
waves
whales
singing
a mirage
medusas into mountain tops
into a Japanese painting
of waves
such waves
into neurons
neurons into
a mirage
a
a
a
bird, swan, cloud
a nebula
a universe
a verse
a
a
a
lightning strike
so bright
a network
I remember
the hurt
but this is not how it went
at all
waves into
neurons into
spider webs into
a haunted house into
a sunken ship
a treasure
a moth
a
a
a
ripple
of snow
mist forest fungi
lungs breathing broken
glass
a fragment
a mirage
a flicker
a
a
a
neuron
a star
a bone
a forest
with roots
of smoke
a nebula
a stream
birds like sparkly
space-things
butterflies
of the eternal
a swan
an angel
an alien
a universe, a verse
this is how I remember
a mirage
in mid-july
a
a
a
medusa
a ghost
a compost
mushrooms
pushing up from the ground
life
stubborn
life
remembered, forgotten
ancient, anew
but this is not how
it is going to
a glitch in the machine
a ghost ship
a tipping point
in time
be remembered
a mirage
a shape-shifter
a
a
a
does it matter
what is real
we are all
sleepwalkers
through time
you
and
i
monsters
in mid-july

.

.

.

Outro

In November and December 2022, I spent some time as a visiting scholar at the University of Stavanger (UiS), Norway, where I worked in the project Caring Futures: Developing Care Ethics for Technology-Mediated Care Practices. As part of my work, I got to experience the Caring Futures art exhibition, that is connected to the research project, at Sølvberget galleri, Stavanger, Norway.

Image: The stairways leading to the exhibition space at Sølvberget galleri. There is a poster of the exhibition showcasing a red, artificial heart, and green wines hanging in the staircase. Photo taken by Aino-Kaisa Koistinen.

The Caring Futures exhibition asks questions such as ”what is at stake when technological innovations are presented as solutions to new demands in contemporary care and welfare. Are questions about ethics, trust, and compassion left behind in the rapid development and implementation of new technologies?” Read more here.

The exhibition is put together by Monster Network’s Ingvil Hellstrand, Associate Professor at the Department of Caring and Ethics, UiS, who currently works in the Caring Futures project, and artist/curator/PhD-candidate Hege Tapio, who runs i/o/lab: Centre for Future Art and works at OsloMet.

For me, exhibition raised questions of the limits of care, affects, movements and connections, memory, boundaries, and the connections of care and violence. The exhibition is open until 18 December 2022 – so there is still time to experience the exhibition for yourself! I fell in love especially with Kari Telstad Sundet’s audiovisual installation ”Memory Space Traveler”, a work that, according to the exhibition catalogue, ”tries to look at mechanomorphism and anthropomorphism from a different angle – literally through the dreams of a semi-sentient machine”.

The above text – a poem, a seance, a meditation? – is a slightly edited stream of consciousness written while thinking- and feeling-with the video installation. The typography of the text was created partly as a surprise; a glitch in WordPress that removed all the empty lines from the text. This glitch perhaps made the text more true to the process of its creation, a stream of consciousness moving with the video installation, ideas and associations constantly changing and evolving.

Aino-Kaisa Koistinen