AJNAWhat if you are computer?


CIID Intro to Computing, 2024
Mentors: Dennis Paul, Jacob Remin
Duration: 1 week 


Ajna was an artistic performance piece catalysed from the thought ‘What if you are the computer?’ The whole point was to imagine the future of computing when the boundaries between the body and the machine get blurred. 


The wearable device was constructed using copper wires and included an Arduino breadboard attached to the participant's back. Two copper wires functioned as a button, completing the circuit and triggering a Processing sketch. The interaction was only possible by touching any two fingers on the hand together creating a gestural interaction.


Why use a keyboard when we have our bodies? From here began the idea of Key-Body and the lore of imagining a future where our civilization created a system in which the human body became the key to the entire system after ingesting a symbolic pill. This concept transformed the individual into the computer itself. Input was detached from traditional language or mathematics, and output was no longer functional in the conventional sense. Instead, different gestures and forms of touch evoked particular visual responses, creating a psychosomatic experience for the audience.