«Influencing the Machine?» Ein Gespräch über Bots, Kunst und das Erzählen von Geschichten in Zeiten technologischer Beeinflussung

Abstract

Tahani Nadim and Neli Wagner are co-curators of the exhibition The Influencing Machine, which was shown from December 1, 2018, to January 20, 2019, in the neue Gesellschaft für bildende Kunst Berlin (nGbK). Alongside the exhibition, they also published a reader entitled The Influencing Machine. Both the reader and the exhibition investigate the role of bots: the automated computer programs that work in the background of digital societies and increasingly influence social action, economic processes, and political debates. In this conversation with Anja Breljak and Christian Schwinghammer, the curators explore the making of the exhibition and discuss the social power of bots, the role of storytelling about technology, and artificial intelligence, and ask how one can grasp what cannot be grasped at first glance.