Algorithmic Oracle (2019)
 

Algorithmic Oracle explores multiple realities simultaneously through the sandbox game The Sims 3, whose early development was inspired by its creator, Will Wright’s, own house fire. The game is configured to generate a series of ‘what-if’ scenarios, reconstructing a house fire that I experienced in real life.

I let the game’s algorithm determine how the fire could have unfolded. Here, The Sims 3 functions as a kind of ‘higher’ algorithmic power—an oracle machine. Every player and set in the video is crafted to match real-world characteristics and appearances. Each scenario begins with three actions controlled by me, replicating what I did before the fire: the character enters the room, lights the fire, and goes to sleep. Once these actions are completed, the game takes over, simulating outcomes based on its probability distribution metrics and inbuilt AI, which follows a modified Boltzmann equation. The game dictates multiple outcomes, while I, as the artist, control only the camera.

Since 2022, the work has taken on new meaning for me. With the war in Ukraine, every night carries for me and other Ukrainians the uncertainty of whether incoming drones will strike our homes, or those of our friends and family. Like my character every night I have the same bed time routine, how will the next night go? This unpredictability mirrors a more distressing reality—another kind of quantum oracle. 

Will you even be aware of me being one of the protagonists in this oracle? No one knows what others are seeing. Our filter bubbles split our online reality into a multiverse of experiences. I don’t see the same content as you, yet we act as if we do. Where did the reality split happen?