Color Rx: Humanoid

Vessel Gallery presents “Color Rx: Humanoid”, a performance by Maia Leandra. In conjunction with video and light installations by Essa Lucienne in the main gallery space, this performance explores the connection between aesthetic understanding and artificial intelligence. While the previous installation of Color Rx at the Harvard Art Museums was grounded in interaction of viewers with a machine learning program –an algorithm diagnosed a viewer’s inputs and “prescribed a color” in response– this new performance at Vessel both reframes and complicates the work by returning the program’s agency to the human factor.

This gesture raises questions about our trust in, or benefit from, “smart” systems, often in contexts where the algorithms are opaque – even when the output is ostensibly concrete. What does it look like to break down and embody a computer's processing system? What does it mean to reconfigure systems thinking back into human consciousness and behavior? Can we adequately assess the benefits and risks?

Videos produced by David Grant.