Nestled between a elementary school and a public library in Brooklyn’s Greenpoint neighborhood, there is a new kind of “luxury” collaboration.
Named Chat Haus, this space has many of the elements you will find in a traditional collaboration office: people who pound on their computer keyboards, another person receiving a phone call, someone else who stops from their computer to get a sip of coffee.
There is, however, a key difference: Chat haus is a cooperation space for AI Chatbots and everything – including people – is made of cardboard.
More specifically, Chat Haus is an art exhibition by Brooklyn artist Nim ben-reuven. It houses a handful of cardboard robots working on their computers through movements controlled by small engines. There is a sign that offers office space for “only” $ 1,999 per month and another that highlights the site as “luxurious cooperation for chatbots”.
Ben-Reuven told TechCrunch that he built the showroom as a way to deal with and bring humor to the fact that most of his work-which is largely focused on graphic design and video-is on the AI world. He added that he has already denied the work of independent independent, as companies are aimed at AI tools.
“It was like an expression of frustration in humor, so I wouldn’t be too bitter for the industry to change so quickly and under my nose and not want to be part of the shift,” Ben-Reuven said. “So I was like. I’ll fight back with something fool I can laugh at myself.”
He said he also wanted to keep this report from being very negative because he didn’t think he would say the right message. He said that he creates art that is grossly negatively forces her in a corner and demands to defend himself. Add to the screen a “lighter tone” also helps to pull viewers of all ages and in all respects for AI.
While Ben-Reuven and I were chatting at Pan Pan Vino Vino, a café opposite the window screen, many groups of people stopped looking at the chat haus. Three millennium women stopped and took photos. A group of elementary-agre-igre-out students stopped and asked questions for their adult partners.
Ben-Reuven also believed that despite what AI is doing in the industry in which he works, the situation remains lighter than some of the other horrors and trauma that happens in the world today.
“I want to say, AI, in terms of the creative world, seems like such a light compared to so many of the others, such as war, the things that are happening in the world and like the terror and trauma that exists,” he said.
Ben-Reuven has always used cardboard in his art. Made a lifesize rest of a cardboard terminal at school. Among the independent work in the last decade, he worked to build these cardboard robots or “cardboard babies” as he calls them. So, while using these cardboard robots was a natural choice for viewing – joking, it also needed a reason to get them out of its apartment – the material also provides another comment for AI.
“The clutter of this cardboard and the ability to collapse under even some weight is how I feel AI interacts with creative industries,” he said. “People can make their images of Midjourney who look really great on Instagram and excite kids aged 12, but with any level of control. They are rubbish and I feel like you look close enough to these cardboard things. They are easily foldable and easy to fall.”
He understands why consumers are attracted to some art created by AI. He was likened to the rough food and the rapidly active stroke of serotonin derived from the consumption of unwanted food before it was quickly assimilated.
Chat Haus is a temporary display, as the building that houses expects licenses to be approved for renovation. Ben-Reuven hopes to keep the screen until at least in mid-May and hopes to move to a larger gallery if he can. He wants to be able to add more to it – but he is worried about where he will put any additional materials in his apartment as soon as the screen is over.
“I thought it would be funny to express this idea that, like a whole graceful, somewhat creepy, baby robots that typing because of our urging chatgpt in a warehouse somewhere, working without interruption, taking as much electricity as Switzerland uses in a year.”
Chat Haus is currently appearing at the front window of 121 Norman Avenue in Brooklyn, New York’s Greenpoint neighborhood.
