#6milliondeletion
in recent years, reading carl amery’s „hitler als vorläufer: auschwitz – der beginn des 21. jahrhunderts?“ and günter anders‘ „die antiquiertheit des menschen: über die seele im zeitalter der zweiten industriellen revolution“ have led peter michael witt to three theses:
1) the next holocaust could take place as human extermination on a similarly high, if not higher, level of abstraction for those responsible, i.e. ultimately without those responsible.
2) identities such as „race“, „ethnicity“, „religion“, etc. are arbitrarily set as „selection criteria“ and are therefore essentially irrelevant. it will and can affect anyone.
3) technological progress, which is currently the most important driver for the destruction of the global life resources of our planet, will also be the driver of the next holocaust. artificial intelligence may play a significant role in this.
in this installation 6 million ai-generated portraits of people are combined with an animated delete dialogue window on the computer display: „do you really want to delete this object? this object will be deleted immediately. this action cannot be cancelled. cancel delete.“ this is repeated 6 million times. the work is projected on a wall in a dark room and runs without sound. it raises questions about the reality status of virtual existences, about the role of technologies in the production of new realities, about dangers provoked by artificial intelligence, about our possibilities to intervene in programmed processes, and fundamentally about our relationship to technology.
#holocaust #6million #realising the uncomprehensible #installation #thenextholocaust