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Creating a body that has meaning

Photography and text

2020 - 2021

Exhibited at multiple venues

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The Hercy B project was a transmedia storytelling project following the fictional AI tech company Hercy B Enterprises and the accompanying cast of characters. The project consisted of numerous physical and digital exhibitions, artworks, musical releases, websites, and performances. The research-based artworks explored topics of technology as power, fiction and labour through a post-cyberfeminist and anti-capitalist lens. 

The website www.hercyb.org introduced the fictional corporation in its fledgling stage. The website borrowed from corporate aesthetics and language that is laden with buzzwords to create a familiar setting recognisable from real-world business directories and works of science fiction. www.hercyb.org acted as a stage on which an online performance took place; a world in which the character of Hercy B (The Lovelace Test 2.0 Model) developed agency.

Hercy B (The Lovelace Test 2.0 Model) is the product created by the company. She is a cyborg for sale. She is in her Beta stage of software development. She is a blank canvas for you to choose her purpose. Her form is the human woman and she passed the tests to prove she’s intelligent. She’s a poet. Hercy B is about to announce their latest product but she has been operating in her Alpha stages and she has been learning. Soon, she will be unveiled as the latest advancement in technology that everybody needs to acquire.

The work asks the viewer to question the role of the corporation and its use of the female body. Hercy B is touch, is a service, a product, performer of labour, an intimacy aid to be used. What does it mean for an AI in the shape of a woman to fill in the gaps? And what happens when that AI develops agency?

The development of Hercy B is rooted in research into algorithmic bias and the lack of equality in technological advancement. The character Hercy B is a summation of my experiences and observations as an “online” woman in 2020 who is navigating the art world as an artist. She is a creator who is testing the limits of her own agency and abilities.