Measuring phenomena, making them readable in the form of numbers, producing data, creating models to guide future choices, is a feverish process around us. We let ourselves be guided by devices programmed by others to make choices, modulate behaviors, take roads. But how often are we aware of the assumptions and categories that underlie these predictive models? The provocative work BIY ™ – Believe it Yourself, from the automato.farm artistic group, is designed to reverse this mechanism. A series of kits, similar to hardware boards, are programmed to openly guide us through popular and traditional superstitions. The shapes of the “Smorfia Napoletana” are recognized by a BIY.See camera pre-trained to recognize misfortune. The spatial harmonies canonized by Feng-Shui orientate the BIY.Move GPS to always take us to the best position for our inner calm. Indian numerology is used by BIY.Hear to elaborate on natural language and expose in real time the hidden destinies in, for example, our personal names. The cultural reference of each kit is exhibited in a baroque way through rich ornaments and symbols that leave no room for interpretation. The knowledge of the esoteric can thus be translated into numbers and incorporated into machines, which, while becoming holders of knowledge once reserved only for a few initiates, may now result in sterile repetition of a non-digitizable vitality in our human perception. Chiara Ciociola

 

BIY ™ – Believe it Yourself