THE GOLDEN KEY immerses visitors in the mythical fantasies of an artificially intelligent machine as it composes a never ending story. The work imagines a future world that has endured the severest impacts of climate change. THE GOLDEN KEY is an artifact, a time capsule, a provocation that was left behind in the last days of the old world. It invites participants to reconstruct a lost mythological history by interacting with digital prompts displayed on the exhibition floor. As the narrative progresses, a flowing sequence of stories, visuals, and audio is created by combining visitors' input with an AI system built on tens of thousands of folktales from across the old world, a range of narrative fragments reflecting our most fundamental concerns.
As a work of speculative mythology from a post-climate collapse future, THE GOLDEN KEY allows audiences to encounter and intervene in the new narrative and myth-making powers imagined for AI. By encouraging interaction and play, it seeks to give participants agency in understanding how these tools work, the power to shape their outputs, and a way to imagine alternative futures together. While new technologies may threaten to take our stories and creativity away, this work seeks to disrupt and complicate the process, creating new myths in the process and fostering a sense of collective action through a shared creative act.
Created by
Marc Da Costa & Matthew Niederhauser
Technical Director
Aaron Santiago
Press
"It felt like a new medium was unfolding
before our eyes."
"Pushing forward what's possible with
generative AI and interactive storytelling."
"An impressive piece of work... [visualizing] a
dream of AI"
— Ted Schilowitz, This Week in XR
"Unlike anything else"
— Chance Townsend, Mashable
