Guillaume Faure - ECHO
Abstract :
ECHO is a small booth in which the visitor takes a seat and sees his face reflected as if there was a mirror but it’s an optical effect. The machine records images and sounds continuously, and then uses the collected words to respond to the visitor who started a conversation with his reflection. When ECHO speaks, the video stream is replaced with the video sample that corresponds to the recorded sound, giving the feeling that the reflection answers to the participant.
This AI repeats the words of the visitors in a shifted way according to the criteria of the tone’s harmony of the voice. Its speech is fluid in the conversation in terms of musicality, but the meaning of words is "random". The continuity of ideas in the discussion and the natural need to find meaning allow the participants to follow a conversation, sometimes made of embarrassment, laughter, clarity, or confusion...
This prototype let us spend a moment with ourselves. At first it confronts us with our face and voice and then the interaction quickly arouses curiosity, and a dialogue is established. By repeating and shifting in time sentences, the device puts our words out of context.
The first thing we perceive about a language is its music, which means its prosodic organization.The rhythm and pitch tone of the voice and silences are the input factors for the AI, not the meaning or context of the words. That’s why ECHO can adapt to any language.
Bio :
Guillaume Faure, 45-year-old, has been directing and shooting films and art videos for over 20 years. He comes from a French family where surrealism and psychology were daily facts. Relating to others was his special fascination. This interest then transformed into a passion for photography, which he believes, is a shortcut to stop the influence of time passing by on people, via fixation.
Then, he started to take part of a start-up company, specialized in websites creation, namely by recruiting specific skilled talents, and by implementing digital software solutions.
After this experience, he came back to artistic creation and directed his first short film where he faced his own troubled story. He was then recruited by BUF to develop, with engineers, a new ready-made targeted software, color-grading processes. Five other films followed this path, and this confirmed his love for images.
He then became director of photography and learned the demands of light and the meaning of frame: he did so by working on the photography of a dozen of short films and one feature film. Since then, Guillaume works between Paris and Barcelona where he currently directs and films commercials, music videos and art videos. He also spends times for artistic research and creates strange immersive installations. He conceived MANGE REVE and SOMA, interactive stethoscopes of emotions. Recently he developed ALEA and ECHO, which share the same artificial intelligence based on music, and put us in front of ourselves.
