In 2017, the Jewish Museum Berlin hosted the exhibition GOLEM in Berlin. One of my street photographs of New York City, showing two walking people looking at their smartphone screens, was published to illustrate the text by Louisa Hall entitled ‘Avatare’. It is a text about the feeding/collection of personal data and the future promise of using that data to model/predict people’s reactions, even after their death. The text is written in German and is available online here.
“Every time we upload a photo to Instagram or allow our phone to save our location, we contribute something to our online afterlife. Every Facebook post breathes a little more life into the golems we’ve made from the devices in our pockets.”
GOLEM (hebrew golmi) is the legend of God creating men out of Earth as told in the hebraic Bible. The exhibition displays important points in history and shows how and why we try to re-create ourself again, using data and technology. It is interesting to read and see how the legend of GOLEM leads and connects to the contemporary undertaking of the creation of artificial intelligence.
A glimpse of Avatar’s future is offered the TV series Black Mirror Season 2 Episode 4 “Be Right Back“.
