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Peter Dittmer «Managing Thing [The Wet Nurse The Wet Nurse 2]»
Peter Dittmer, «Managing Thing [The Wet Nurse The Wet Nurse 2]», 1992
© Peter Dittmer


 Peter Dittmer
«Managing Thing [The Wet Nurse The Wet Nurse 2]»

Via the keyboard and screen, the user enters into a dialogue with the computer (as in 1994 at ‘Minima Media – Medienbiennale' in Leipzig, seen here). The computer offers six vehicles for the production of language: a program machine, an identification apparatus, an appraisal of the situation, a response apparatus, a store of contradictions and an apparatus for formulating contradictions. The computer's responses, which take the form of text, graphics or sounds, make users feel that they are conducting a conversation with an opposite number who is at once intelligent, sloppy and insulting. If the dialogue reaches a point at which the machine becomes ‘excited' a glass of milk is spilled in a glass case. Using recorded conversations, the repertoire of the ‘nurse' has been continually expanded since 1992: at present, the program offers approximately 120,000 answer modules and more than 16,000 identification variables.

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