Michael Bielicky, Kamila B. Richter

The interactive project »SEVENTYNINE« is an artificial being whose head manifests itself in a specifically engineered spherical display. The visitors can use their language to induce “the being” to react in a speaking and singing mode. The name of the artificial being is encoded in the number »SEVENTYNINE«. This liturgical artificial intelligence enables an interactive spiritual experience as one might expect of the 21st century.

Without vowels, the Hebrew words for letter, number and speaking are identical. In their original writings, the old Cabbalists regarded the Holy Scriptures as the code of God in which they assigned letters to numerical values: for them the universe is essentially built on the prime elements of numbers, because God’s words reflected in human language are concentrations of His energy. For the Cabbalists it was the numerical code that possessed the infinite power to create new realities: an »Imitatio dei«. The idea of the homunculus was later derived from these numerical world-creating principles. Today's homunculus or AI is able to create new homunculus through »Imitatio hominis« and these can then create further AI ad infinitum through »Imitatio robotum«, akin to the »Imitation dei« of the old Cabbalists.

Text: Michael Bielicky

Co-authors: Kimin Han (sound), Nikolaus Völzow (coding), Alex Wenger (ingeneering)