Ian Cheng

Life After BOB

A groundbreaking cinematic experience that engages a central contemporary question: what is the status of human life, in an age of rapid technological innovation?

Centring on Ian Cheng’s first narrative film The Chalice Study, this LAS-commissioned exhibition plunges into the complex relationship between technology, human free will and desire. Life After BOB is a planned eight-part anime miniseries by Ian Cheng, wherein humans and AIArtificial intelligence (AI)Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a machine’s capacity to perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence. An area of computer science, AI uses machine learning to simulate intelligent behaviour using algorithms. Artificial intelligence is used in many industries that work with large volumes of data, mainly for task-oriented functions. merge, with turbulent consequences.

The exhibition advances the American artist's practice as, for the first time, Cheng situates his work with computer-simulated animation in a physical installation. Inside Berlin’s iconic post-industrial venue Halle am Berghain, the resultant experience takes viewers on a psychologically charged journey far beyond the screen. Ultimately, this odyssey unfolds within us, and our shifting social and technological context.

How will artificial intelligenceArtificial intelligence (AI)Artificial intelligence (AI) refers to a machine’s capacity to perform tasks that would typically require human intelligence. An area of computer science, AI uses machine learning to simulate intelligent behaviour using algorithms. Artificial intelligence is used in many industries that work with large volumes of data, mainly for task-oriented functions. transform the archetypal scripts that guide our lives? Imagine a future world in which your mind is no longer entirely your own, but co-inhabited by an AI entity. Now imagine how a life lived with an AI might transform the scripts that guide your sense of a meaningful existence.

Set in not-so-distant 2074, Life After BOB is an episodic anime series that imagines a future world in which the internet extends into our nervous systems, psychotropic foods unify physical and psychic realities into one fluid experience stream, AI entities are permitted to co-inhabit human minds, and anomie reigns.

In The Chalice Study, neural engineer Dr. Wong has installed an experimental AI named BOB (“Bag of Beliefs”) into the nervous system of his 10-year-old daughter, Chalice. Designed to guide Chalice through the challenges of growing up in a volatile world, BOB confronts more and more of the conflicts in Chalice’s life on her behalf, while Chalice grows increasingly escapist. As Dr. Wong begins to favor the BOB side of his daughter, and as BOB threatens to do the job of living Chalice’s life better than she can, Chalice jealously wonders: What is left for her classic human self to do?

‘Life After BOB imagines new archetypal characters for our ever-weirdening times, and gives life to them through an experience that integrates authored cinematic storytelling with open-ended simulated worlding.’

– Ian Cheng

With Life After BOB, Cheng bridges cinematic storytelling, with the computer simulation techniques of his earlier work. The Chalice Study is the most ambitious feature film yet produced using Unity video game engine. This method separates the film from cinema as we know it. Instead of being projected from a reel or file, it is live-streamed for each screening. Meanwhile, an algorithmicAlgorithmAn algorithm is a set of step-by-step instructions, most commonly written in digital code, designed to achieve a goal or solve a problem. Algorithms range in complexity depending on the amount of parameters that structure each step. Examples include the Shortest Path algorithm, which calculates the fastest routes in navigation systems, and the PageRank algorithm, which is used to generate results for online search engines. feed perpetually transforms its details. After each streaming of the film, viewers encounter an interactive ‘worldwatching’ station. Here, they can pause the film and explore its details at their own speed. The exhibition will also include a merchandise offering, specially designed and produced for this show, including apparel and cherishables. In this way, Cheng’s work achieves an unprecedented reach into our shared culture, and viewers’ lives. Together with LAS, Cheng also produces a bespoke NFTNFTAn NFT (non-fungible token) is a unique asset stored on blockchain, which maintains a certificate that points towards a server that holds an image, audio, or video file. This means that once an NFT is released, all information about it is publicly available, including its value, ownership, and proof of its uniqueness. Once an NFT is purchased, a smart contract verifies the file’s authenticity, and certifies its owner. experience titled TRUE NAME, which will generate personalised prompts to guide visitors through the exhibition and engage them in the existential themes of the film Life After BOB: The Chalice Study. Each unique NFT is powered by Tezos and can be obtained for free via QR code in the exhibition’s store.

‘Artificial intelligence presents some of the most urgent and intriguing possibilities for our times. At LAS we work with artists pushing the boundaries between art and new technologies, so I’m delighted to be working with Ian Cheng on this new project that uses cutting-edge technology to describe a provoking and unsettling imagined future, one in which the line between humans and machines has become startlingly blurred.’

– Bettina Kames, Director of LAS