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The Talking Heads experiment was shown at a "Cognitive
Science Laboratory" installed in the city of Antwerp
(Belgium) as part of the LABORATORIUM
project from 27th June 1999 to 3rd October 1999. The Antwerp
installation was on the 6th floor of the President Building
at 12 Franklin Rooseveltplaats.
LABORATORIUM brought together 6 artists and 6 scientists who each installed
their own laboratory in the city. The laboratories were open to the public for
3 months in the summer of 1999. Various additional events (films,
conferences, exhibitions, etc.) concerning science and its interaction with art
were also organised.
LABORATORIUM was curated by Barbara Vanderlinden and Hans-Ulrich Obrist and
took place as part of the festivities in
Antwerp associated with Anthony Van Dyck, the painter who was born 400 years
ago. Video of the Talking Heads
The Talking Heads experiment,
developed with Luc Steels and collaborators in Sony CSL Paris and the
VUB AI lab in Brussels, studied the evolution of a shared lexicon
in a population of embodied software agents. The agents developed their
vocabulary by observing a scene through digital cameras and
communicating about what they habe
seen together. To add an extra level of complexity to their task,
agents were able to move freely between different computer
installations
located in different parts of the world. Members of the public were
able to influence the course of the experiment by logging on to the
Talking Heads website to create and teach their own agents. (more)
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