CKRBT
March 22–May 26, 2019
Machines are watching and interpreting images that are captured by algorithms operating other machines that are seemingly watching the world on our behalf.
Nye Thompson’s new solo show CKRBT explores the emergent machine gaze and the unseen power structures that underpin it.
Watermans presents a brand new solo show by Nye Thompson: CKRBT. The CKRBT (pronounced see-ker-bot) Network is browsing the world. It watches and consumes images collected and fed to it by feeder machines. Any thing, or person, entering the bots’ field of vision will be similarly analysed and categorised. The installation sets up a self-contained system where machines are performers, audience, content providers and commentators.
CKRBT is a new installation from Thompson’s ongoing project The Seeker. The Seeker is a machinic entity—a proto AI—that travels the world virtually looking through compromised surveillance cameras and using machine learning algorithms to describe its visions. Named for Ptah-Seker, the artist/technologist god of the Ancient Egyptians, who created the world by speaking the words to describe it, this project looks at how the act of describing the world might establish a whole new worldview for machines and humans alike.
About the artist
Nye Thompson is an artist turned software designer turned artist again. She creates data-generating artist software systems to explore the impact of new technology paradigms. She has exhibited around UK, Europe and the Far East, including Tate Modern, The Barbican, The V&A, ZKM Karlsruhe and The Lowry. Her first solo show Backdoored.io became global clickbait and triggered a complaint by a major government. Her work has been featured on BBC, C4, CNN Hong Kong, the Guardian and Wired, and was guest presenter on BBC Radio 4’s programme “The Art of Now: Surveillance”. She was the recipient of an Arts Council England G4A award in 2017, a British Council/ACE travel award in 2018, and an Arts Council England Projects Grant award in 2019. She was a Lumen Prize 2018 finalist. Nye lives and works in London.
This exhibition is generously supported by Watermans and Arts Council England through the National Lottery Project Grants Scheme.
