*The following is a work in progress, and the site might be changed as the project is being developed.
Prototype Sketch
Above is a prototype of the DysCalculator Installation in the full environment with the projector.
DysCalculator is a robotic interactive installation. Featuring a ‘Calculator Interface’ and an algorithmically calculating ‘Computing Agent’ displaying its process upon a wall. The work plays on the tension between the fetishization of technology found within our society and how it is tested when human neurological conditions are embedded within a working program.
The user begins by approaching a plinth entering a calculation of their choosing into a venerated custom ‘Calculator Interface’ integrated within a wood and stained glass reliquary box. Upon receiving orders, the ‘Interface’ calculates and displays the correct answer on an embedded LCD screen, before sending the initial equation to the wall displayed ‘Computing Agent’. Through this transmission, the machine transforms from cold & clinical to human & fallible - breaking down the equations and displaying them as they are solved. Swapping between the four divergent states of Calculating, Miscalculating, Looping, and Overload; mirrors the processes experienced personally by an individual with Dyscalculia when introduced to mathematical formulae.
Calculating emulates the state of “ideal” computing. The numbers are understood, the equations are clean, and everything is displayed. It is the idyllic human-computer replacement - everything expected and revered of the machine. In contrast, the Miscalculating behaviour presents the perfect foil: the interred numbers are interchanged with a library of pre-observed look-alikes (ex 2s becoming 5s) pulled from scientific literature as well as the artist’s personal experience. Despite these substitutions, the ‘Computing Agent’ continues to equate in the correct order of operation, but reaches the incorrect final result. The Looping state explores a person’s tendency to fixatedly ruminate - displaying the equation on loop, stuck trying to answer a simple set of operations, yet being unable to move past them as it reprocesses and shows the root question indefinitely. The final state, Overload, exists when the number of steps exceeds the calculating capacity. Functionally similar to Looping - Overload diverts this other state by displaying the entire calculation over and over; until the order of operations can break it into smaller equations, or the ‘Computing Agent’ gives up trying to compute.
Each state is based on the artist’s personal experiences when faced with mathematical equations. The Cyborg represents an upload of consciousness- yet the creator is an extension of its basis for behaviour when users are introduced to the project first, and the person second.
Presenting the calculations in reliquary, we worship the cyborg in its use. Yet instead of idealized accurate computing, the machine inherits a variability present in the creator’s brains via the condition of Dyscalculia. Numbers that are read correctly at first change in the midst of calculations and articulation - following the correct formatting and procedure, but failing to reach the true result. This is the cyborg machine inheriting human flaws - and the abhuman being asking who cares for its struggle.
Above is a prototype of the DysCalculator Caluculator Unit.
Inspiration/Mood Boards
