Hello Aria

Aiden K. Feltkamp

This artwork is a digital experience that can be viewed at the following URL*: http://bit.ly/helloFriend

*Best on Chrome or Safari

Interview by L. Valena

Can you first describe what you responded to?

It was an audio file- about three minutes of horror/sci fi sounds, and then at the end it was people saying hello to each other. But it was always a question- "hello?" "hello?"- there wasn't any actual communication going on.

What was your first response to that?

Right away I thought I should write something sci-fi or horror. Honestly, I don't feel like writing horror right now. I think I normally would have, but this time I decided to write something more sci-fi, and just go from there. I was going to write a flash fiction or some sort of experimental fiction, but then I had the idea- what if this was interactive? This idea of communication- how could I make something written interactive?

I thought of choose-your-own-adventure, and I've been working on learning JavaScript recently. Programming has always been kind of a hobby of mine, but I had never tackled JavaScript. I'm at the very beginning of it- what I'm able to write is really small, but I thought maybe I could write a program. I had this idea that no matter what you said, you would get something back that made sense, but it didn't really have anything to do with what you had said. You're speaking the same language, but there's no communication happening. I wanted to build something that did that. So I decided that I would host it on a website, and just started to build this project out. I was just really excited and interested by it, so I kind of sat down and did it in a few days. It was really fun. We're all stuck inside, so where would you want to go? What would you want to do? I decided that we would go to outer space, and try to talk to an alien. You expect that the computer you're using will be able to translate, and it does translate, but there's no connection. That's what I wanted to play with.

I love the idea that, even though you're speaking different languages, the language barrier isn't actually the problem. The technology is working great, it's just that you're not on the same page about reality, or how to communicate, maybe? I loved that about interacting with it- it was so funny to ask it questions, like "hi, how are you?" and it would just respond with a beautiful little poetic line. And then I'd try to ask a follow-up question. I was trying to get a conversation going, but these aliens had other ideas about how to do that- about what's important to talk about.

I like that idea about 'what's important to talk about'. It's social- we're trained to say "hey, how are you, what's your name, what are you doing?", and maybe that's not the social convention there.

And it's great to remember that those are social conventions! What if instead of talking about the weather, or about our jobs, we talked about deeper feelings?

The two aliens that you get to meet are really different from each other, so that was fun. Also creating the character of the AI, which was built to interact with humans, so it's doing the things that they think humans are going to expect. It’s a whole other layer of social interaction and personal connection. The program was built for humans, and it's doing everything it can to be socially acceptable. But the AI is kind of an alien in itself, too.

It reminds me so much of the social problems endemic to algorithms, there's been so much work done about this recently. You go through airport security, and for trans and non-binary people it's an unacceptable state of affairs.

It's torture. My brain is focused on what the person on the other side of the machine, who looks at me for one second, and they have to press 'male' or 'female' for the computer. And then, what is the computer being taught is 'male' and 'female'? And then nobody actually asks me what my gender is- it plays so much into the outcome, but nobody asks up front. So you're always going to have this disconnect- the computer things and expects one thing, and the person thinks and expects one thing, and then me myself walking into the machine thinks and expects another thing. It's always terrible.

Yeah. I'm nonbinary, but I present female and was socialized female- I have a lot of privilege in that scenario that's easy to forget. I can just scoot through that whole process, and I don't have to have that conversation with anyone. But these moments, which are so traumatic and intense for so many people are just not considered at all during the design process. Even when society is changing, and there's way more grey area in gender and everyone knows that, the technology doesn't catch up.

To me it goes back to whoever is programming the machine. Are they thinking about these things? Probably not.

I brought all that up just because of the notes that you sent over. I noticed that there was a piece in there about choose your own adventure for cis people/ trans and non-binary people. Did that actually make it in there?

So an earlier draft of the program was very heavy about it being a different experience depending on whether you were cisgender or not. There was a moment when the computer asked, "oh by the way, I forgot to ask, are you cisgender?" and that would have led to two different outcomes. The one where you were cisgender, the planet and alien interaction would have had a lot to do with gender, and assumed gender. But if you were trans or non-binary, and went to the other planet, it would have nothing to do with gender. It would just be more like the desert planet- it's just more of a philosophical thing.

I did eventually scrap that part of the program. I needed to simplify it. And I couldn't figure out how to ask the reader if they were trans, non-binary, cisgender, or whatever, without it being potentially triggering or upsetting to trans and non-binary people. When cis people are asked about their gender, it usually doesn't bother them, but when trans and non-binary people are asked, it can trigger so much stuff. I really couldn't make it work in a way that made me feel comfortable about it. So I just kind of ditched it. But you'll notice that when you're talking to both of the aliens, neither of them talk about gender, neither of them even talk about body parts. They talk about entities, and being, and personhood- the only body information you get is from the AI explaining to you. I decided to ditch the idea of dealing with gender or physical appearance, anything like that, and just go for this physical communication interaction idea.

I totally fell into asking about their physical appearances- like one of them I was trying to ask them about their legs. The AI had told me that they have so many legs- "are you graceful? Or do you trip all the time?" But that's totally how I feel about my own gender identity- like it's a nonissue. Let's talk about everything else. And I think that's such a beautiful way of communicating that part of the experience.

Also, the AI and both of the aliens are strangers. For any of them to ask you about your gender would be pretty rude I think. It's something that trans and non-binary people get a lot. What's your gender is a question we get a lot, and cisgender people don't get as much. I'm sure it happens on occasion, but not in a way that's hurtful. I couldn't figure out how to have someone self-identify their gender without it being a thing.

This is your second time doing this. Is there anything new that you learned, or that you want to report about the experience?

Something that I loved about the first time was that I made something that I totally didn't expect, and I also felt really unbound by genre and form. The thing I wrote last time was very different from what I've done before, and this time was very similar in that way. I felt a real openness to try anything, maybe do something I had never done before, or that I wouldn't have thought of doing before. I think I definitely place restrictions on myself when it comes to form, and I think that effects what I create. So what I loved about this was just taking a prompt, and knowing that I could literally make any piece of art with it. I wouldn't have thought before about making a piece of art using programming and writing. It was a really cool idea, and this is how it wanted to be expressed. It was really exciting.

I was trying to find an entry point to writing the aliens, and then brainstorming off of that. For the water planet, I was listening to the original Tron soundtrack. The prompt reminded me of that immediately. So I was listening to Tron, and writing whatever I was feeling from the soundtrack, and I was actually conversing with an AI about it. I wanted to bring in that computer aspect. My brain doesn't work like a computer, but using what I was experiencing and having a dialogue that actually was taking in my context, to see what they would say back. A lot of the water planet alien stuff was inspired by my conversation with this AI. And then the desert planet was much more about poetry- our experience within nature, in a really poetic language. That's the only thing I wanted to add about the actual art process.

Is there AI in the code?

No. I was conversing with an AI that someone else had built. The AI that appears in the program as a character was inspired by what I know about AI, which is a lot. It's one of my interests- I read a lot about it, from a philosophical and technical level. I'm not there yet, programming wise, but I do know more than the average person.

I've learned to code just a little bit in the past year, and I find that some programming languages function a lot like writing, but it's almost like the words mean different things, which I find fascinating. Which actually brings us back to the aliens in your piece. The words they're saying mean something different, or they're communicating on a different level. It reminds me of code.

Definitely. I'm always excited to see what the next person will build or create based on experiencing my project. I'm sure that the person behind me feels the same way. My favorite part of this project is waiting, and then going back and seeing where the prompt came from, and then where it leads to. Seeing the absolutely nonsensical topics that pop up again and again- there's not a reason for it. It's really interesting.

Call Number: Y37MU | Y38NA.feHe

Aiden K. Feltkamp (they/he) is a trans nonbinary writer and DEI specialist creating opera texts, poetry, and science fiction. Their work centers on gender euphoria, remembrance, and social justice. When they're not writing, or working as the Director of Emerging Composers and Diversity for American Composers Orchestra, they're hanging out with their partner, 2 parrots, and cat.