[A]I Maze

AI systems free us from choice: from the agony of choosing between contents, and from democratic political choice. How do we deal with such systems? How do we stop being benevolently liberated?

2023 Professional Table

A person stands in a colorful indoor maze of tall partition walls with a sign reading A/I Maze in front.

[A]I Maze answers with a labyrinth. In Vienna we know the mirror cabinet in the Prater from childhood, and today we know face recognition from unlocking a phone or opening a banking app; when we apply for a loan, AI decides on our creditworthiness. The maze brings the two together: a mirror labyrinth that reads the faces of the people walking through it.

I built the face recognition: a web-based system (Node.js, face-api.js) running across seven Linux computers and talking to two Raspberry Pi Pico sensors programmed in Python.

The maze opened at the OHO in Oberwart on 11 March 2023 (Neuromatic Game Art, 2023). It is an emanation of the artistic research project The Psycholudic Approach (Austrian Science Fund FWF/PEEK), led by Margarete Jahrmann, with me as AI engine developer at Experimental Game Cultures, University of Applied Arts Vienna. The AI engine on the Psycholudic site.

Press: OHO programme · BVZ

How it was made

NeuromaticAILabyrinth
  • A woman's face is overlaid with a glowing facial-recognition mesh and connected points.
  • A person stands in a colorful indoor maze of tall partition walls with a sign reading A/I Maze in front.
  • A vertical screen shows a face-recognition interface with GO LEFT, portrait images, and a green sculpted face.
  • A stylized portrait of a face in a hooded garment, mirrored above and below with black and orange geometric blocks.
  • A woman laughs and points at a wall-mounted screen in a pink-walled maze corridor.
  • A flowchart with labeled boxes and arrows on a white background, plus small icon boxes in the top right.
  • A person in a green hoodie stands beside a maze of black partitions lit with colorful lights.