Tanvi Sharma, Sophie Shiff, Peter Turnbull
ritualbot (2019)
What might a ritual loop of disparate elements speculate about us? ritualbot is a generative text project that seeks to form new relations between the human and the social body. in a world of hypernetic connections, it matters which ones get made. ritualbot runs on a raspberry pi and outputs its results to a thermal printer, generating connections from an extensive library of poetic language and logic. visitors are also invited to investigate rituals occurring at @ritualbot on twitter dot com.
“wake up in your unfortunate womb. contemplate your coffee necessarily. shuffle to your ditch.” 2019/09/14 8:13:36pm
ritualbot is an interactive installation piece, comprised of a bot that generates “rituals” for users to follow at their discretion, a thermal printer produces a physical copy for the visitor to keep. the rituals dictate what the user should do throughout the day, like how many of us brush our teeth before going to bed, or shower when we wake up in the morning. the generation of rituals is performed randomly, and the results are often strange, yet sometimes oddly fitting, and many visitors find them compelling in a way that feels like techno-magic.
“do you remember the first time you initiated your love? if only you could rearrange routinely, you might share something for the hope.” 2019/09/28 6:20:06pm
ritualbot is a bizarre experiment in low-fi artificial intelligence, and how our thoughts and ideas are easily absorbed by our bot and mutated into something completely different, and then rapidly reproduced and transmitted. our physical version is already fast as-is, but pales in comparison to what is possible in the virtual world. The near-instant transmission speed combined with the web’s potential for limitless feedback loops and transformation of existing content, create the contemporary condition for our thoughts to live on in generative shapes and forms.
“do you remember the first time you concentrated your text? if only you could criticize hourly,
you might forget something for the memory.” 2019/09/21 6:15:31pm
Tanvi Sharma
I’m a designer collaborating with studios and communities to create progressive and interdisciplinary experiences — web platforms, programs, books and so much more. I was born and raised in New Delhi, India but have been practising on the U.S. East Coast and the social internet for the previous half decade.
When I’m not designing to explore alternative ways of understanding the convergence of the social experience, aesthetics & language, I’m reading and gardening with my peers to build solidarity and thoughtfulness
Sophie Shiff
Sophie Shiff was born in 1998 in Cincinnati, Ohio. She has just graduated with a BFA from the Maryland Institute College of Art (MICA).
Sophie has had a number of shows in Baltimore, including “Simultaneous Crisis” in the Gateway 2 Gallery at MICA and “15 false morals” in the Fox 2 Gallery at MICA. In 2017, she showed her work at light show BLINK, in Cincinnati, OH.
She has recently been spending her time advocating for sustainability, collaboration, and accessibility.
Peter Turnbull
Peter is from Palo Alto, California, and is currently a BFA student in Interactive Arts at the Maryland Institute College of Art (or MICA), in Baltimore, Maryland.
He’s worked as an IT grunt; a summer camp counselor in various places, from Palo Alto High School to Hogwarts; an amateur radio broadcaster; an orientation leader at MICA; a Peer Mentor with the Center of Identity and Inclusion at MICA; and is currently a technical advisor and mentor for students in MICA’s Graphic Design MFA program.