Instagram takeover by Helen Knowles begins Tuesday 21 February

Creative technologist, digital artist and game developer Dan Hett has coded an algorithm which will respond to key words and prose written by Zabludowicz Collection Invites artist Helen Knowles relating to interests in her practice. A series of images will be drawn from various online sources for publication on the Zabludowicz Collection Instagram account.

The takeover will begin on Tuesday 21 Feburary, and accumulate with Knowles’ Invites Artist's Presentation on Sunday 26 February 3pm. The event will bring together a newly convened ‘jury’ of academics, artists, musicians, publishers, experts in AI and hackers will debate, inviting views and opinions from the audience on the themes of Knowles' ongoing project The Trial of Superdebthunterbot.

The prose provided by Helen Knowles that the takeover algorithm will respond to is as follows:

Automation
The next major shift stemming from technological invention and innovation, it seems, will be the automation of many of the activities and jobs which we have been doing over the past couple of centuries and way before that. This will affect many of us from drivers through to carers.

The Ethics of Technology
In a self-driving car, if a crash seems immanent will the algorithm make a call to crash the car into the wall killing only those in the vehicle (as well as itself) instead of impacting the other car and causing more death and destruction?

Decision Making
I make bad decisions. Occasionally, I make good ones too. Generally my decisions are irrational and based on the emotional tides of my life. However, sometimes what appears like irrational choices stem from deeper instinctual perceptions of the world. I feel adequately and annoyingly complex, enough so that the subtle nature of my deliberations are a mixture of weighing up the pros and cons and also listening to other internal (and external) forces. The argument for an automated judgement or selection is that the fallible human makes choices which are less cleanly calculated. If a robot decides to do something, will it decide to do it again tomorrow?

Social Impact of Technology
How do we feel about potentially intimate activities being carried out by robots? When I phone the bank it is a voice recognition system which I talk to and it makes me feel frustrated. It feels impersonal and seems to take more time instead of less. But there are many uses of automation which will cut out very boring and repetitive work like looking over endless contracts.

Social Media as an Educational Tool
Women share their birth videos online to teach each other how to give birth since they do not have the opportunity to attend each other’s birth. They challenge the medical status quo by using their direct experiences of birth to show other women and men the possibilities for what could be. The platforms they use include YouTube and there are literally millions of videos which anyone can access. This is just one example, if you want to learn how to mend a boiler, or take the back off your iPhone you can see other videos and work out what to do.

The Internet
Appearing like an abstract mega structure, it is really a combination of material infrastructure or hardware channeled out, above and below ground which connects people around the globe. What seems like intangible permutations of code and high speed communication is really reliant on the cables, laptop boxes and endless permutations of wiring. Yet the information which circulates has been capitalised on and new sovereign powers are being forged by those who are able to control and store and make us of this intelligence.