Typo

An interactive experience with a vintage typewriter that has a life of its own. Animated by robotics and artificial intelligence, it writes poetry through dialogue with its human audience.

Typo is an interactive experience with a vintage typewriter that has a life of its own. Animated by robotics and artificial intelligence, it writes poetry through dialogue with its human audience.

The mechanical typewriter is an anachronism from a bygone era, yet it remains a potent symbol of mechanisation and progress in art and literature. By splicing together the digital and the analogue, we breathe new life into the machine and turn it into a primary performer, capable of responding to its surroundings and creating of its own accord. Through its exploration of AI, Typo invites us to question the idea of originality, and to grapple with our opinions of algorithmically-generated art when compared to pieces crafted entirely by human minds and hands. When poems are a product of user input, complex software, and a vast digital library of existing literature, who is the artist?

Typo offers moments of wonder and playfulness, as audiences interact with an enigmatic machine in a variety of live performances and experience the often vague and overly-technical world of AI in a tangible way. No longer a simple tool, Typo gains a role as an autonomous co-creator alongside its audience.

About the artists

• James Camilleri is a software engineer by day, but has experience in graphic and motion design, and is wildly passionate about the theatre, whether it’s on stage as a performer or as part of a production team. With a burgeoning interest in generative digital art, he is keen on creating things that break out of the digital space and into the real world.
• Evina Kipeni-Thalassinou is an interactive designer, visual artist and performer. Her main interest is to create installations where the audience can experience wonder and magic.