Atoll I
Atoll I is a new video work developed from the interactive installation Relate – Talk with Me, which invited audiences to engage in dialogue with a custom-designed AI agent represented by an avatar, focusing on the theme of relationships.
It becomes both a memory bank and a speculative terrain, mapping how we connect, confess, and coexist in increasingly digitized environments, where artificial intelligence stands as both witness and mirror. The video also deliberately introduces ambiguity, encouraging viewers to question whether the words they hear are real or generated: challenging our perception of authenticity and the boundaries between human and machine expression.
Atoll I functions as a video archive, collecting transcriptions of these exchanges from the imagined perspectives of anonymous individuals. Each voice reveals personal reflections on intimacy: ranging from emotional memories to experiences of connection or detachment, including relationships with AI itself. Like the circular form of an atoll linking scattered islands, the work illuminates the invisible threads that connect individual “bubbles” of experience within the same urban and social landscape.
This piece marks the first chapter of an evolving archive. With each new presentation of Relate – Talk with Me, a new iteration of Atoll will be created expanding the archive with dialogues selected by the artist for their emotional depth or thematic relevance. While the structure remains consistent, Each iteration will maintain the same structure, but feature a new backdrop, avatars with different physiognomies, and a different circular connector. Over time, this process seeks to trace how our interactions, behaviors, and concerns evolve as we grow increasingly used to communicating with AI, which has become a familiar presence in our everyday lives.
Avatar Design and animations by Anna Patzak