Wishing Well (许愿池)
Wishing Well (许愿池) by media artist John Fillwalk and IDIA Lab, is an Artificial Intelligence (AI) installation that was invited into the 5th Arts and Science International Exhibition and Symposium (TASIES 2019) at the National Museum of China in Beijing located on Tiananmen Square. The exhibition curated the work of international artists engaged in the pioneering use of AI in the creation of art-making. The Wishing Well installation creates an interactive environment where visitors’ spoken wishes shape the substance, meaning and character of the artwork – mediated through artificial intelligence.
Wishing Well ( 许愿池 ) engages both private and public spatial interactions in the creation of a simultaneously intimate and collective social experience. The tone of the wishes aggregated by the system is processed anonymously and delivered into this social sculpture via synthesized whispered voices, spoken in Mandarin. The pool of water in the bowl, or wishing well, is vibrated by a speaker placed underneath – creating a three-dimensional dynamic sound wave representation shaped by the sound of the actual wish. Virtual colored shapes are emitted based on the tonal analysis of each wish and are aggregated into an historical representation of previous wishes – launching skyward to become part of the larger collection of dreams.
