Practices of Prediction: Reading (2023)

Practices of Prediction: Reading, is an interactive tarot reading experience mediated by AI systems. It repositions engaging with AI as a process of reaching out to unexplainable forces for predictive guidance or knowledge which has been transformed from mystical to rational via algorithmic engagement.

You can read my published paper on this artwork here.

Audience member engaging with interactive artwork.

Within the gallery space, audience members find a mirror (screen), a stool and velvet table with an embedded keyboard. Upon sitting down, the screen explains to the user that it is an AI fortune teller who can provide guidance about the future. The user is then encouraged to ask a question and is supplied with a newly generated Tarot card image and respective reading.

Visualisation of denoising process.

In the creation of the Tarot cards for the exhibition, I used the Tarot deck as one fixed system for representing the world, as the parameters of prompts for engaging Midjourney as another fixed system for representing the world. Through this, the respective modes of categorisation and interpretation present in the protocols of these systems of prediction are engaged. Parameters in ML are variables the system learns to make predictions or narrow in upon the desired result. B4y using the 78 cards of a standard Tarot deck as weights or parameters, I can then ‘fill in the gaps’ between cards, outsourcing the creation of a predictive relationship between cards to ML. By increasing the weight or influence of each card as a parameter in the prompt, I can explore how the predictive relationships between cards can be represented visually.

Animated Gif of Tarot card emerging over time.

When the prompt was sent to Midjourney, a script would save out the images generated incrementally and then blend between the images creating a seamless animation of the card coming into focus. While this process of images coming into focus is naturalised within Discord as the hosting platform for Midjourney – when brought into the context of the Tarot reader installation, this process of generating becomes visually alike to occult practices like reading crystal balls or tea leaves.

Chloe McFadden