INDIFFERENCE
Emergence is a collaborative initiative where art and technology students explore new artistic media, drawing on the expertise of TU Delft, the Royal Academy of Art, and the Royal Conservatoire The Hague. Our work investigates “black-boxed” technologies, complex systems whose inner workings are difficult to comprehend, highlighting how this opacity can distance us from their impact on daily life.
.jpg)
Platform Project: AI x Spatial Sound (4DSOUND)
​The way AI systems interpret our world is unlike the way we do this ourselves. Though its results can be accurate, being aware of this difference is important. When an AI system behaves ‘human-like’ in some specific task, it is easy to assume that it experiences the world in a ‘human’ way, which is to say, similarly complete and generalised. This ascribes to it competencies and understanding that it does not actually possess.
The Platform Project set out to build a 4DSOUND SoundLab for experimentation and curiosity-driven research. This practice-based research resulted in INDIFFERENCE, an immersive, interactive installation that explored spatial sound as a storytelling medium to reflect on artificial intelligence.
​​​​
ABOUT THE INSTALLATION:
​The INDIFFERENCE invited visitors to step inside the difference between human and artificial intelligence. Through movement, speech, and interaction, it revealed how AI perceives the world differently from us. Sometimes accurately, sometimes imperfectly, allowing participants to intuitively experience both its potential and its limitations.
Developed through collaborative creation with AI tools, the installation integrated camera-based motion tracking, AI-driven speech recognition, and AI-generated speech into a single adaptive system that responded to participants’ presence. Pre-composed and real-time adaptive layers coexisted within a multi-layered composition, encouraging curiosity and exploration. The AI models were trained on our original sound library, creating an “in-between” space where human gestures and algorithmic responses intertwined, exposing not only the intelligence but also the misunderstandings of the system as it tried to interpret human behaviour.
The work premiered in June 2024 at the exhibition Interfering Perspectives in De Kaai in Rotterdam and was later presented at Dutch Design Week 2024 in Eindhoven, accompanied by a process expo tracing the development of the project. Additional outcomes included organising a symposium on Art & Tech and leading workshops that supported other students in creating a sound installation for the TU Delft library.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
​​​​​
AFTERMOVIE: Exhibition Interfering Perspectives