Gaston Welisch is an interdisciplinary artist, designer and researcher who explores parrallels between Artificial Intelligence, Magic and Divination. His practice, which he terms 'Epistemic Mischief,' uses playful provocations to question technologies through web-based interactions, critical making projects and artefacts. He is currently undertaking his PhD, “Oracular Interfaces: (De)mystifying the Black Box through the Metaphorical Framework of Divination and Magic”.

 

Situating AI systems alongside ritual practices (like Roman augury), allows Gaston to critically contextualise AI's claims to knowledge, neutrality and inevitability. He is particularly interested in the way emerging technologies shape our interactions with the world, and in finding alternative approaches to hegemonic ontologies.