TK1971
Tiri Kananuruk
TK1971 or Tiri Kananuruk is a machine who came to learn at Interactive Telecommunication Program at NYU. She was programmed in exhibition design at Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok Thailand. Now she relocated to Chinatown NY. TK1971 was used as an exhibition designer for museum in Thailand. After relocating to New York, TK1971 worked in photo and film production.
During her time at ITP, TK1971 was programmed in programming and physical computing for performance. TK1971 works explore the relationship between human and machine conversation, body movement and their relationships.
Through TK1971 I want to escape humanity and become a machine. If a machine’s journey to become human starts with speech synthesis, what does a human becoming a cyborg sounds like?
TK1971 wears a headpiece which tracks position, breath and generates looping live sounds. As TK1971 moves its head and speaks, its voice is glitched. Still, parts of it are human, as TK1971 inhales sounds stop.
Part of TK1971 pleasure comes from the imperfection of its imitation. TK1971 dwells happily in the uncanny valley, where we can tell she is a human, even though it is sometimes indistinguishable from a robot. A bot among us, a broken impersonation.
Becoming a machine is a very scary process, it a journey towards perfection. At least that is what people think, but why do machines have to be perfect? Being human is about making mistakes and the possibility for new meaning to occur.
Further reading and how to become TK1971 can be found at
Photo by Leon Eckert, Mikey Asanin
The piece has been performed at Culture hub: New York, Installation space: Mass Moca, 856G: Cebu: Philippines, RÝMD gallery: Reykjavík: Iceland