Topher's Cyborg Portrait Apprentice certainly sounds as an exciting project appropriate for our time and age. Interaction between the human (subject) and the cyborg (in this case artist + computer) is always interesting, and in my opinion should be supported and encouraged. I like how the author thinks of his multi-role playing cyborg as the posthuman virtual subject that acts, among other things, as a postmodern metaphor for self-expression. That at the end of this interaction we (as subjects) get a physical copy of the cyborg's improvised, but structural interpretation of us via digital rendering (which can later be copied and in theory perpetuated to the infinity) -- is definitely a bonus because too often our other interpersonal interactions (in the society at large) leave nothing tangible except the traces of memory that eventually fades.
I am definitely clear on the overall function of this project. To that end the presented flowchart (of interaction), and the detailed description is very helpful and useful, However, I am unclear on the myriad of little technical details/functions and specifications that will be involved, simply because it is hard to imagine all of them without seeing them first. For that reason I am personally unsure how technologically feasible this project is at this stage of the blueprint.
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As far as Karl's Liebesraum is concerned my very first reaction is the need to clarify the rationale for usage of such word/term to begin with. Why would this installation be called Liebesraum? The author offers a brief explanation that Liebesraum "directly translates to living space or living room. An innocuous word in itself, the term is historically loaded by Hitler's usage to justify invading Poland".
I am not convinced that the Liebesraum means exactly what the author think it means. Brief Google search for this term returns just over a paltry 1,000 results (a few which are referring to this work to begin with) -- suggesting that this term is not widely used at all. In fact further research shows claims that Liebesraum means 'room to love in' ("liebe" = "love"), which is almost identical, but meaningfully different to the more widely used word Lebensraum which means 'room to live in'. Therefore, the author is probably thinking of the term Lebensraum (according to Wikipedia Lebensraum is "German for 'habitat' or literally 'living space' ") and if so, I could only point out that this term has very negative historical connotations (Wikipedia: "In his book Mein Kampf, Adolf Hitler detailed his belief that the German people needed Lebensraum (for a Grossdeutschland, land, and raw materials), and that it should be taken in the East.") -- and for that reason I would suggest a move away from naming this project as such, unless there is a deep artistic conviction for it.
The project itself seems highly ambitious in its technical nature, and even more so in its stated aims of engaging "the issues of historical construction and its entangled relation with political discourse, social identity, and individual memory". I like the emphasis on analysis of a US perspective on (recent) history by giving the opportunities to the subject/viewer to "think critically about history in political discourse but also how they’ve come to understand history and the development of their US-centered western world view."
I am excited by the author's remarks that theoretical support shall be based "upon the inspirational writings of the poststructuralists Roland Brathes, Jacques Derrida and Giles Deleuze, the postmodern historians and social theorist Hayden White and Michel Foucault, and then the historical writings of Hegel, Rousseau, Marx, Edmund Burke, John Adams, and Frederick Douglass." -- but am afraid that such complex over analysis may find itself in the way of the installation's practicality. In other words, it almost looks like the emphasis is more on meeting the author's own investigation, rather than the actual engagement of the audience. As an average subject/viewer I would probably be perplexed by the myriad of visual stimuli, and expectations of me (in the interview process); to that end I am uncertain as to how audience will respond to it (will they know what to think of it, let alone to examine themselves). There is a fine line between engaging audience, and scaring them (turning them away), and the author needs to be aware of that.
However, as an artist I think that is precisely what could be great about this project; a jolt to the system that FORCES the subject/viewer to faces his own recollections and preconceptions. For that reason I admire the author's goals and ambitions, and am particularly intrigued by a desire to go beyond "the formal and theoretical limitations of documentary".
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