Nadja Verena Marcin: #SOPHYGRAY

As a critical reflection on the use of chatbots such as Amazon’s Alexa, Microsoft’s Cortana or Apple’s Siri, Nadja Verena Marcin addresses the possibilities and limitations of AI in the fields of language and emotion through her work #SOPHYGRAY.

Sophy, an audio bot, has been trained by the artist and its developers to have conversations about identity, art, and feminism. Text excerpts from important feminist theorists form the basis of the bot’s knowledge. It aims to draw attention to the gender biases embedded in today’s technologies, exposing and overturning the stereotypes associated with common language use and habitus. The impact of personal intelligent assistants in everyday life, the representation of women in the media, and the objectification that the use of these gendered technologies often entails are the focus of Marcin’s project.

#SOPHYGRAY is made possible by the EMAP residency program, the New York State Council on the Arts with the support of the Office of the Governor and the New York State Legislature, the Ministry of Culture North Rhine-Westphalia, NEUSTART KULTUR by the German Federal Culture Commissioner, Stiftung Kunstfonds in Bonn, as well as sponsored by IT company Novatec. The artwork is fiscally sponsored by the New York Foundation for the Arts.

Nadja Verena Marcin is the artist-in-residence of the European Media Art Platform 2022 at Onassis Stegi.