The machine ghost in the human shell 2024 is the third work in Kawita Vatanajyankur’s ‘Cyber labour’ series 2022–ongoing, made in collaboration with artificial intelligence (AI) researcher Pat Pataranutaporn. These diverse works address changing attitudes towards the emergence and visibility of AI. As Vatanajyankur and Pataranutaporn convey, platforms like ChatGPT have shown that AI is capable of the kind of creative thinking once considered the exclusive domain of humans.

Addressing the looming implications of this developing technology, The machine ghost in the human shell enacts a battle between Vatanjyankur and a holographic ‘ghost’ (representing human and machine, respectively). With her entire body connected to electronic stimulus machines in a specially fabricated garment, the artist attempts to mentally resist and act against the machines’ control. In an accompanying audio component, Vatanjyankur and the machine ghost enact a choreographed dialogue that proposes alternative scenarios regarding AI and the future of the human race.

Will intelligent machines replace humans, with the latter becoming physical robots fit only for menial tasks? Or will an evolution occur in which the natural and the artificial, human and machine connect in a new reality?