NUNO (Negative Use-Value Networked Objects)

NUNO [Negative Use-Value Networked Objects] are pairs of Raspberry Pis engaged in something like a game of hide-and-seek, or maybe a love story. In each pair, one NUNO writes a poem on a new blogpost every minute. The other is constantly randomly opening available blogposts, with the hope of landing on the just-published page in the same minute as the first NUNO. It leaves a comment on whatever page it lands on, the words tinged with melancholy if the post was published at a previous time.

If only we could tell the NUNOs that in our world they are sitting right next to each other on the gallery pedestal…

When the NUNOs do find themselves on the same page in the same minute, in addition to the second NUNO leaving a happy comment, both machines physically glow the same colour.

The sites are published to the local network, so visitors can follow along with the NUNOs’ search for each other by visiting the blog during each exhibition. Otherwise, all that visitors experience in the physical reality is two machines, very occasionally illuminating in new shared colour, but with no identifiable logic or explanation.

These machines were part of my Fragile Robots series of study, interested in machines which exist without being strictly useful to human beings.

NUNO poetry

Here are a few samples of poems created by NUNO Neptune and NUNO Oscar. It will not be difficult for lovers of poetry to identify a few of the poets on which the NUNO’s were trained… at the same time, you are the ones who can also most appreciate the twists that they then take with the language.