In the age of smart everything, we are sold devices for every aspect of our lives, promising to deliver us to utilitarian utopia. Even the personal space of sleep is invaded by technology-augmented pillows. The installation consists of a set of six smart pillows and immersive environment for engaging with them. Visitors are invited to lay down and nap with a smart pillow, attended to by its embedded intelligence. The intelligence serves as guide, companion, and caretaker while the user drifts between awareness and unconsciousness. Unbeknownst to the visitor, each pillow is driven by a performer serving as human attendant. Each performer listens to an audio feed from one pillow, controlling the pillow via a web interface. They can type text, play music and sound, and control lighting. The performers are guided by a branching script that leaves room for improvisation, allowing them to perform their own interpretation of an AI personality. The effect is an experience in which the viewer wonders whether it an impressive AI or a human smart pillow, and where the line between human and machine, between personal and functional, really lies. http://lauren-mccarthy.com

In the age of smart everything, we are sold devices for every aspect of our lives, promising to deliver us to utilitarian utopia. Even the personal space of sleep is invaded by technology-augmented pillows that play music, track sleep, and wake you up. Visitors are invited to lay down and nap with a smart pillow, attended to by its embedded intelligence. The intelligence serves as guide, companion, and caretaker while the user drifts between awareness and unconsciousness. Do they wake at some moment to what’s actually happening?The installation consists of a napping area, with a rack of smart pillows arranged nearby. Visitors are invited to take a pillow and lay down with it somewhere in the space. When they put their head to it, they realize that the object talks to them, and is driven by an intelligence of some kind. The digital voice notices their presence and begins a conversation, asking their name and offering a range of things it can do -- play a song, set an alarm, tell a story, etc. However, the longer the person interacts with the pillow, the more human it begins to feel, until it reaches an uncanny space between AI and human, and the visitor is left questioning their own expectations. In reality, each pillow is driven by a performer serving as human attendant. Each performer sits with a laptop computer and listens to an audio feed from one pillow, controlling the pillow via a web interface. They can type text to be spoken by computer voice, responding to the visitor’s words, movements, and breathing as they offer companionship and aid in relaxing. They may also play music or emit a sequence of subtle, ambient lights responding to the needs of the visitor. The visitor may relax, drift to sleep, and request to be awoken after a certain amount of time. The performers are guided by a branching script that leaves room for improvisation, allowing them to perform their own interpretation of an AI personality.

Each pillow has electronics embedded: Raspberry Pi, microphone, speaker, battery, LEDs. Raspberry Pi streams audio from microphone via WebRTC to webpage. Performers have a website interface to listen to stream, type responses to generate speech to text played through speakers in pillow, and control LED array for ambient lighting effects. Pillows have rechargeable batteries and are recharged in between individual uses. The script for the performers was developed through rounds of iteration and testing with the performers to result in a structured improvised conversation that got at the tensions and questions of the work.

Variable dimensions. The installation space consists of a slightly raised floor space approximately 5x7m with short pile carpet. Semi-transparent curtains enclose the space. The floor is slightly elevated (0.2m) to make visitors feel they are entering a different space, one that is open to alternate behavior. Visitors laying with pillows become like a landscape of sculptures on display, but the dimness of the room and elevation gives a sense of privacy and separation from passersby. Minimal lighting casts the space with warm glow. The feeling is natural, cozy, slightly alien, protected.