Omikuji

An AI robot tells your fortune. Omikuji are short personal fortunes traditionally obtained at Japanese temples and shrines. Exhibition visitors are invited to receive omikuji in the form of a personal mini sound-artwork, made by Japanese robot ‘Alter’ and delivered directly to your phone! Alter is an android with experimental AI that can sense, learn, and sing. It uses a self-organising neural network to understand and respond to its surroundings. Omikuji began as a live-stream event taking place between Japan’s National Museum of Emerging Science and Innovation (Miraikan) and major art precincts in Asia. Developed into the artists’ ‘belief machine’, now it travels the world delivering its unique style of prophecy to curious audiences. Robot: Takashi Ikegami, Hiroshi Ishiguro, Itsuki Doi, Kohei Ogawa Technical (belief machine): Boris Morris Bagattini, Lindsay Webb Omikuji was commissioned by Goethe Institut China for the international exhibition A Better Version of You.

Elena Knox (JP)
ELENA KNOX is a performance/media artist and scholar. Her artworks stage enactments of persona, gender and presence (sonzai kan) in technoscience and communications media. Recent shows include: Bangkok Art Biennale; Yokohama Triennale; Future and the Arts, Mori Art Museum Tokyo; A-S HELIX, National Museum of China; Beijing Media Art Biennale; and 9 Tomorrows, China Academy of Art. Knox is an adjunct researcher in Intermedia Art and Science at Waseda University, Tokyo.
KATSUMI WATANABE is a scientist focusing on perception, cognition and action. His research methods encompass interdisciplinary approaches to cognitive science, and real-life applications of knowledge. Watanabe collaborates closely with AIST (Cognition and Action Research Group, HSBE, Japan), CREST (Japan Science and Technology Agency), and Caltech (Shimojo Lab, USA). He has a PhD in computation and neural systems from the California Institute of Technology, and is Professor at the Department of Intermedia Art and Science, Waseda University, Tokyo.