NOX

2023

immersive installation with video game, audio, videos, scenography, duration variable

Guanyin is a carebot, the program in charge of treatments at NOX. She told me I’ve been enrolled in a charity subscription service for runaway cars like me. Problem cars who need retraining in Nonhuman Excellence.

— ENIGMA-76, 3 APRIL 20XX

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INTRODUCTION

NOX is an immersive exhibition that imagines the psychological consequences of a future populated by smart systems and intelligent machines. NOX (short for 'Nonhuman Excellence') is a fictional program created by AI startup Farsight Corporation to rehabilitate disobedient self-driving cars.

In the first video, 'Day Two: Guanyin, The Carebot', we are introduced to Enigma-76, a self-driving car who undergoes a five-day rehabilitation journey at NOX - a programme for 'Nonhuman Excellence'. The second video, 'Day Five: Equine Therapy' connects with the car at the last day of their journey, as they reconnect with their ancestors in a journey into a mythical and technological underworld.

The complete exhibition walkthrough experience is also available in a third video (42m), which evokes the experience of an audience member reconstructing the full story as they walk around the space.

Lek conceived NOX as a work of speculative fiction, drawing on the history of conversations around AI psychology – from the Turing Test to chatbots – and projected them into a near-future scenario. In the exhibition, ambient music, voiceover fragments and nighttime lighting give the smart city setting the mood of film noir, a genre characterised by dark, dreamlike qualities.The entire installation reflects how characters in film noir are on a search for meaning, gradually piecing together memories and clues to make sense of the tumultuous world around them. Similarly, the role of the audience is in constant flux throughout the exhibition, as their movement generates a narrative soundscape of voice logs and poetic passages alternately addressing them as ‘sponsor’, ‘customer’, and ‘trainee’.

NOX is the second part of Lek's 'Smart City' trilogy of CGI noir, preceded by 'Black Cloud' (2021) and followed by ‘Empty Rider’ (2024).