The Finite State Fantasia

In The Finite State Fantasia an invisible, theoretical machine is simulated moving around a space. Using a simple algorithm, comparable to that of domestic robot vacuum cleaners, it moves through the space generating a point-cloud map of the space when it hits a wall. However, the machine is invisible. The only things visible to humans are its infrared senses and a point cloud of data where the machine has hit the walls and built the map so far.

This digital landscape is complimented by the ultrasonic markers where it has hit artefacts that intrude on its simulation - humans. These distortions break the model of the room, shifting the model and forcing the machine to recalibrate its calculation of the space.

The Finite State Fantasia invites its audience to experience the sensorium of a theoretical machine. By putting the audience ‘inside’ the machine sensorium and removing the human perspective of seeing it as a plastic black box, it reveals the cognitive differences between human and machine. Based on the algorithm of a robotic vacuum cleaner but able to move through 3D space, the invisible machine builds a map of its captive space over time, highlighting the difference in the way that humans and machines interact with physical reality.

The project elicits feelings of overwhelming alienation in its audience by making the normally invisible and inaudible infrared and ultrasonic senses of the machine human-legible and show how little we are able to comprehend the universe modelled by devices and machines increasingly given their own agency and control over our world. The project alludes to the theories of computation, where applied models fail when faced with the messy and organic world of humans and the struggle of science and the machines to reconcile reality with the model.

• http://tobiasrevell.com/The-Finite-State...