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@Transmolovesyou

Custom Twitter bot. 2017.Commissioned by Transmission, Glasgow.

Follow @transmolovesyou on Twitter: https://twitter.com/Transmolovesyou

@Transmolovesyou is a Twitter bot that constructs fictitious artistic projects using real exhibition details skimmed from the Transmission archive—artists’ names, titles, etc. The project was commissioned by Transmission gallery; an artist-run organisation that supports and is supported by its membership and surrounding communities in Glasgow, as part of a series of ‘subjective interventions’ by invited artists.

It is an automated content-engine, producing hypothetical art productions. Unlike other bots, it doesn’t engage other Twitter users in conversation, interact with live data sources or pretend to be a real person. Unlike an AI or neural network, it doesn’t learn—it simply follows a set of instructions (the algorithm). The bot doesn’t understand natural language or syntax any more than it understands intention, desire, metaphor or context. Like content spamming websites, it generates a kind of contentless content; noise without signal.

The database is constructed from hundreds of individual data points skimmed from the exhibition and event listings of Transmission, from 1983 to the present day. The dataset isn’t a comprehensive or complete database of Transmission history. Omissions and elisions were made to give @transmoloveyou a feeling of being, maybe, based on something real that once happened.

The image shows a screengrab of the Twitter homepage of the @Transmolovesyou Twitter bot. The profile picture is a image of a smiling woman in low resolution. The right hand side of the homepage shows several recent tweets by the bot.