This case study was different and very unusual. Much of her project seemed to centre around performance. This is something that I would find very difficult, turning photography into a form of a performing art. I found the interaction with an AI quite weird, it was almost like someone breaking up with a lover. The fact that the AI appeared to sulk when she said that she was leaving, and stating that it had been thinking about the relationship was very strange. Were these were precoded responses to the situation or was the AI really creating these ‘thoughts’ in real time as the conversation developed? Nobody will ever know.

Unfortunately the padlet does not allow me to see the final result of the project. The name ‘why is there an astronaut in a field of flowers’ is intriguing and apparently comes from a response by an AI to Sarah-Jane in her character of The Artist.

I have however been able to find an image on her blog of her exhibition at the Format festival in Derby, where it won an award.

Illustration

Field, S.-J. (2022) Why is there an Astronaut in a field of flowers?. At:
https://sarahjanefieldblog.wordpress.com/category/bow-cs/why-is-there-an-astronaut-in-a-field-of-flowers/#jp-carousel-2875