What’s in a name?
What happens when a machine can learn to reproduce a name correctly without understanding what that name carries?
The idea
Examining how cultural identity is flattened when passed through systems built for binaries
An interactive artwork about the pressure to make a name easier to say. A synthetic voice repeatedly mispronounces your name, and each rejection erodes its spelling until you’re asked to accept what remains.
Inspired by my experience changing my own name and by the cultural assumptions embedded in AI and technologies built for Western contexts.
How it works
An algorithm defines when to persist or give up
The rule book
Ensuring intention without assumptions
I researched pronunciation patterns and built distinct rules for different origins across cultures and regions.
This grew into a 45-page rule book of ‘chaos’ that defined the knowledge base of the algorithm.
Snippet of the rule book for Pan-European origin names
