BIRD: Bird Informed Remote Divination by Gaston Welisch
BIRD: Bird Informed Remote Divination by Gaston Welisch is an interactive, web-based artwork exploring the ways AI-driven pattern recognition mirrors and diverges from historical predictive practices, like Roman augury.
With BIRD, users collaborate with an AI augur to interpret bird patterns in a live webcam feed, answering whatever questions the user might have.
This work invites users to interrogate how they assign meaning to observed patterns and how these interpretations shape their decisions and behaviours moving forward.
COLLECTIVE MEANING-MAKING
BIRD can also be experienced as an interactive prototype for how we might (re)design the UX of AI. Inspired by the divination practice of augury, this web app invites the user to co-create meanings from the patterns identified by the AI augur.
In this way, BIRD shows how we could design other predictive practices (like an AI-powered product or service) with the user as an active interpreter of data patterns, and co-creator of interpretive meaning.
ABOUT THE ARTIST
Gaston Welisch is an interdisciplinary artist, designer, and researcher with a keen interest in exploring the intersections of play, artificial intelligence (AI), and everyday life. His work aims to demystify technology through creative practices, making complex scientific and societal concepts more accessible and engaging.
With a diverse background that spans graphic design, interaction design, and photography, Gaston crafts narratives that provoke a deeper engagement with the world around us. Gaston is currently pursuing a PhD titled "AI Oracles and Creative Practices," which critically examines the ethical and social implications of AI through the analogical lens of divination and magic.
