The Ghost in the Machine

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Apr 19, 2023

The works that make up this program are tethered, in one way or another, to the host of knowledges that is the internet. They raise concerns around unrestricted access at a young age, the internet as an archive, as well as Amazon’s Alexa and AI. The filmmakers expose some of the cultural, gendered, historical, and…

Festival · Film Screening

Amanda Turner Pohan, Anatola Araba, Gloria Gammer, Manuela Gutiérrez Arrieta, Orit Ben Shitrit, Robert Seidel, Yvette Granata

Program Details

Wednesday, April 19, 2023
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Curated by Jaclyn Quaresma
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Work by Amanda Turner Pohan, Anatola Araba, Gloria Gammer,
Orit Ben Shitrit, Manuela Gutiérrez Arrieta, Robert Seidel,
Yvette Granata
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Anatola Araba’s film Afro Algorithms from this program won the Images Festival’s York University Award for Best Student Work
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Images Festival, Toronto
Co-presented with Inter/Access and the Media Arts Network of Ontario
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This program was presented online with closed captions

In his 1949 critique of Cartesian mind-body dualism, philosopher Gilbert Ryle introduced the idiom “ghost in the machine,” poking fun at the idea that the mind may be a non-physical entity (a ghost) that somehow interacts with the mechanical body (the machine). It has since been used to describe the nature of machine learning or artificial intelligence.

Machine learning algorithms are fed by the massive and ever-changing pools of information accessible through a global network of interconnected computers, servers, and other devices that constitute the internet. And thus, AI gains access to vast amounts of data which it then processes to create the outcomes people utilize. But algorithms and the data that feeds them are not neutral. As professor Elisa Celis points out, societal and economic ramifications manifest at the interface of computation and machine learning, specifically regarding fairness and diversity. [1]

The works that make up this program are tethered, in one way or another, to the host of knowledges that is the internet. They raise concerns around unrestricted access at a young age, the internet as an archive, as well as Amazon’s Alexa and AI. The filmmakers expose some of the cultural, gendered, historical, and racial biases now implicit on these platforms as the ghost in the machine. Amanda Turner Pohan, Anatola Araba, Gloria Gammer, Orit Ben Shitrit, Manuela Gutiérrez Arrieta, Robert Seidel, and Yvette Granata reconsider the present moment and the potential shortcomings of a phantom-led future.

Celis, L. Elisa, Amit Deshpande, Tarun Kathuria, and Nisheeth K. Vishnoi. “How to Be Fair and Diverse?” arXiv.org, October 23, 2016. https://arxiv.org/abs/1610.07183.

Program Schedule

Alexa Echoes, Amanda Turner Pohan. CANADIAN PREMIERE | USA | 2021 | DIGITAL VIDEO | 31 MIN | ENGLISH.

Alexa Echoes recasts the relationship between cultural movements and commercial technologies through the history of women’s devocalization and disembodiment. It begins with mythical Greek figures, such as Echo, and leads up to Amazon’s smart speaker and digital voice-based assistant Alexa.

Afro Algorithms, Anatola Araba. CANADIAN PREMIERE | USA | 2022 | DIGITAL VIDEO | 14 MIN | ENGLISH.

This 3D-animated short film in the Afrofuturist genre explores the topics of AI and bias. In a distant future, a bot named Aero is inaugurated as the world’s first AI ruler. But Aero soon learns that important worldviews are missing from her databank, including the experiences of the historically marginalized and oppressed.

WENN DIE WELT ZU ENDE GEHT, WERDE ICH DICH GELIEBT HABEN (When the World Comes to an End, I Will Have Loved You), Gloria Gammer. CANADIAN PREMIERE | AUSTRIA | 2022 | DIGITAL VIDEO | 15 MIN | ENGLISH WITH SUBTITLES.

Following a climate catastrophe, Andy uploads themself into the digital afterworld. Even though they have a hard time adapting to the digital world, the omnipresent super intelligence insists that paradise is right here. The film was mainly shot in the metaverse Second Life.

Echoes in My Mouth, Orit Ben Shitrit. NORTH AMERICAN PREMIERE | USA | 2022 | DIGITAL VIDEO | 7 MIN | ENGLISH WITH SUBTITLES.

When artificial intelligence arrives at machine consciousness, and human memories and traumas can be rewritten or removed, four humans struggle to reach a memory bank in a remote cave. They follow an enchanting siren as they travel into a mysterious world.

Cosas que nunca van a morir (Things That Won’t Die), Manuela Gutiérrez Arrieta. CANADIAN PREMIERE | SPAIN | 2022 | DIGITAL VIDEO | 14 MIN |
SPANISH WITH ENGLISH SUBTITLES.

After finding videos she uploaded to YouTube when she was a child, Manuela attempts to follow the trail she herself left on the internet. Along the way, she comes across things that even she did not remember about herself. This is a film about childhood, consent, and the way we look at ourselves.

HYSTERESIS, Robert Seidel. CANADIAN PREMIERE | GERMANY | 2021 | DIGITAL VIDEO | 5 MIN | NO DIALOGUE.

HYSTERESIS intimately weaves a transformative fabric between Robert Seidel’s projections of abstract drawings and queer performer Tsuki’s vigorous choreography. Using machine learning to mediate these lagged re-presentations, the film intentionally corrupts the AI’s strategies to unveil a frenetic, delicate, flamboyant visual language of hysteria and hysteresis in this historical moment.

The Endless, Yvette Granata. CANADIAN PREMIERE | USA | 2022 | DIGITAL VIDEO | 11 MIN | NO DIALOGUE.

The Endless is a speculative sensory ethnography film generated from AI models in the act of interpreting humans and vice versa. Alien landscapes and 3D models are constructed through the eyes of a machine roaming through an unknown human-machine culture.