[PRECURSING]
A little-known aspect of video games is that some serve as a training space for artificial intelligence. For example, some AIs that guide driverless cars have been trained using video games like Grand Theft Auto. In these simulated environments, pedestrians are NPCs (Non Playable Characters) whose movements standardise human gestures, eliminating differences between bodies, personalities or cultures.
This project by artist Nina Davies includes a video set in the near future in which two people talk about a pedestrian being hit by an autonomous car and the trial that ensues. In the conversation we discover the existence of a popular choreographic phenomenon called precursing in which people imitate the movements and gestures of NPCs in the hope of being identified by the AI of self-driving cars better, and thus avoid being run over. In Davies’ words, these people who imitate NPCs in public spaces are like ghosts between two worlds: they live in one of them, but have learned to communicate with the other.
***
Born in Vancouver, Canada, in 1991, Nina Davies lives and works in London. She graduated in Fine Arts from Central Saint Martins and holds a master’s degree in Fine Arts from Goldsmiths University of London. She works primarily with video, performance, writing, and installations, focusing on studying current phenomena of dance in relation to sociotechnical environments. Her work has recently been exhibited at Matt’s Gallery (London), Transmediale, AdK (Berlin), Seventeen (London), Pradiauto (Madrid), or Camden Arts Centre (London). Her work has been selected to participate in Bloomberg New Contemporaries 2023, Circa x Dazed Class of 2022, and Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival. In 2021, she co-founded Future Artefacts FM with artist Niamh Schmidtke, and in 2023, they produced a miniseries for the online program The Couch by Het HEM. Among the recognitions received are the Almacantar Studio Award or the Goldsmiths Junior Fellowship from Goldsmith University in 2022 and the New Contemporaries in 2023.
