Multiuser LBE - XR + AI
Artificial intelligence is forcefed and everywhere: from AI agents, to image editing apps to self-parking cars and a virtual assistant in your kitchen. The attempt to transfer human learning and thinking to computers and give them intelligence is a prominent phenomenon of our time. Sure. But what exactly is AI? Four years into the hype, what is still not that replicable from our human minds?
CHOM5KY vs CHOMSKY
A playful conversation on AI
November 2022, the German-Canadian co-production celebrated its world premiere in Berlin at the KINDL Centre for Contemporary Art. In November 2023, it exhibited at the Quartier des Spectacles/National Film Board of Canada in Montreal.
Currently exhibited in a modular version (alongside Results, also by Sandra Rodriguez) at the MacKenzie Art Gallerie (Regina, Canada), as part of the Governor General Award Exhibit - 4 December 2025 – 3 May 2026
Explore the world of artificial intelligence by engaging in a collaborative, multiuser virtual reality experience that invites us all to examine, disrupt and question the promises and pitfalls of AI.
CHOM5KY vs CHOMSKY
is a mixed reality installation (XR) that I have worked on in many iterations between 2017, 2020, 2022 and 2023. The experience is never the same. It has lived, evolved and adapted with the developments of Artificial Intelligence, and it keeps its promises to this day - to demistify AI with AI, through AI.
The experience invites visitors to have a thought-provoking encounter with Artificial Intelligence, currently guided by a virtual host inspired and built on the digital traces of renowned linguist Noam Chomsky. Putting the user front and centre, CHOMSKY_AI serves as a mirror, reflecting back what people discover about themselves during the experience.
If we know so little about the human mind, what exactly are we choosing to replicate with AI?
To what end? And what are we leaving behind?
The experience evolves through 7 different chapters, each designed to highlight something different and unique about the human brain, and about the way we interact and perceive our human/machine relationship.
Unwillingly, visitors discover they are part of three games created within the game, each triggering a playful yet thought provokking reaction - as each game highlight three essential traits of our human intelligence that today’s AI systems still can’t seem to match:
creativity, curiosity & collaboration.
Through these three different forms of play, visitors learn about the limitations and possibilities of machines but in particular, they learn about each other as curious, collaborative and endlessly creative human beings.
MUSEUM OF THE MIND - A new form of cultural entertainement
The experience is driven by conversation. As of now, previous iterations were based of the digital traces of professor Noam Chomsky. Yet new iterations will explore other important thinkers, speakers and public intellectuals. The experience offers the unique opportunity for visitors to try out a new form of cultural entertainment while also gaining an understanding of the social impact of Artificial Intelligence.
Play a part, open the public discourse on Artificial Intelligence and democratize its tools for the general public.
As we evolve in the everchanging world, the playful and collaborative experience allows us to examine the promises and pitfalls of AI in a fun and engaging way. Our guide is just as curious as us, and keeps questionning: what we’re hoping to achieve? What are we choosing to recreate? What are we emitting? And at what cost.
Understanding what AI is—what it promises to do—is power.
Credits
Author and Creator:
Sandra Rodriguez
Design, Code and Scenography Leads:
Sebastian Huber
Johannes Lemke
Max Seeger
Johannes Timpernagel
Felix Worseck
Michael Burk
Back-End and AI lead
Cindy Sherman Bishop
Additional AI Support
Moov AI
Composition and Immersive Audio
kling klang klong
Producer
Uschi Feldges
Carl-Johannes Schulze
Marie-Pier Gauthier
Laurence Dolbec
Executive Producer
Louis-Richard Tremblay
Robert Pohle
A Canada-Germany coproduction between Sandra Rodriguez, the National Film Board of Canada and SCHNELLE BUNTE BILDER.
With support from Medienboard Berlin-Brandenburg. And with the support from the Sundance Institute’s New Frontier Lab Programs. With a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation.
Incubated at the MIT Open Documentary Lab. And with the help and collaboration from the MIT Libraries Distinguished Collection.
CHOM5KY vs CHOMSKY was part of the Berlin Science Week 2022.
