IAN CHENG

Life After BOB: The Chalice Study Experience (LABX), 2021-2022, is a 50-minute animebuilt in the Unity video game engine and presented in real-time. It centres on the life ofChalice, the first child to grow up with an AI symbiote called BOB. Unlike typical cinematicproductions, LABX was conceived and built as a simulated world, populated by charactersand artifacts with rich lore beyond the story. LABX features ‘worldwatching’ mode, anintuitive way for you to pause the cinematic story and freely explore every detail of the LABworld and its many secrets.

Thousand Lives, 2023-2024, is a simulation that dramatises the daily life of Chalice’s petturtle, Thousand. Thousand is driven by a neuro-symbolic AI model that attempts to learn therelevance of everything it encounters to its own internal reptilian urges. Over the course ofmany days, Thousand develops a recognition of the affordances and threats in Chalice’smessy apartment environment, minimises upsets to its expectations, and constructs newmotives to better satisfy its competing urges. This slow but steady developmental processforms the ongoing drama of Thousand’s lifetime in a new kind of “slow story” achieved onlyvia simulation. When viewed one-on-one, Thousand Lives may recognise your presence andadapt to your precise viewing perspective, giving you a hyper-personalised portal intoThousand’s worldview.

Press release courtesy Gladstone Gallery