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Alexa, why did you buy cat food again?

Sculpture including a text co-written with Joy Zhu

“Dreamworks”, Limbo Gallery, Margate, 2018

Dimensions: h.118 x w.152 x d. 36 cm

Materials: foam board, vinyl prints

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The Smartree is a promotional stand that ‘“advertises” an imagined structure on which cats can play, exercise, relax and sleep. Moreover, this device, which is tailored around cat biomechanics, has been programmed with various sensors and Machine Learning algorithms to interact with its feline-users and learn from this relationship, in order to reach ‘technological singularity’: optimising according to input. It has been conceived to be one of the first non-anthropocentric products of our human-influenced epoch. The human being owner, friend, or carer has no bearing on the development of the device, only a felis catus can influence the evolving sculpture, meaning its eventual development cannot even be predicted as it works with the cat. The Smartree is not yet in production and is presented currently as a projection.

Project website: www.smartree.cat