Friendly Fire at the Shrink

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With their chatbot therapy software, the Swedish company Mindfix catapulted themselves to the forefront of artificial intelligence. Thanks to their superior algorithms, a successful therapy now takes only 8 minutes — an efficiency gain of over 20,000 percent.

But stubborn cases refuse to be cured. For them, Mindfix is developing a secret special project. In an exclusive cooperation with Kulturhaus Helferei, the audience can test this groundbreaking invention for the first time.

Presented as a one-on-one installation-performance in the Gewölbekeller of Schlachthaus Theater Bern, Friendly Fire at the Shrink takes a critical and tongue-in-cheek look at the tech industry’s anthropomorphization of computing machines. During each 30-minute slot, images and video of the audience member are recorded and artistically altered using online AI services, turning the therapeutic encounter into an unsettling mirror of machine empathy.

Supported by the City and Canton of Zurich, Mobiliar Jubiläumsstiftung, Ernst Göhner Stiftung, Institute for the Performing Arts and Film, Immersive Arts Space, DIZH and Speech Graphics Ltd.