As long back as I can remember, my childhood was terribly haunted by the most dreadful recurrent nightmare. It didn't have anything to do with monsters, heights or weird insects; instead, the nightmare always ran that I got my grandfather's computer infected with a very nasty virus.

My grandfather's computer meant a whole lot to me. With no social skills to my name, the thought of it getting infected bore the same tragic weight as being shunned by my best friend. And sadly enough, for a very large chunk of my childhood, my computer was my best friend. If only it could talk back to me...

Around 14 years later, armed with a University degree (and a consistently virus-free computer!) I came around to making just that: a computer that could talk back to you. Only what it would say to you... wouldn't be all that nice.

Entitled 'iġiblek demmek ilma' (EN: makes your blood boil), the interactive artwork was exhibited in May of 2024 as my debut artwork at Spazju Kreattiv, Malta's National Centre for Creativity.

A high-brow assessment would contextually place the artwork somewhere between Duchamp and a Manzoni, securing it a comfortable spot under the anti-art monicker. But I have always preferred simple descriptions. And the simplest way I can describe makes your blood boil is: an AI-powered interactive artwork created with the sole purpose to piss you off and get you to leave the art exhibit as quickly as possible.

I started working on the artwork around August of 2023, as applications for the third edition of Shifting Contexts opened. Yearning for an opportunity to dip my toe into the art world, I hacked together the below proposal.

9 months later, after a couple-dozen iterations (and with the help of Robert Mifsud, a phenomenally talented young programmer), it was finally ready.

On the 24th of May, 2024, audiences were presented with nothing more than a noisy CRT, an Apple keyboard from the late 80s, and the phrase: "Talk, human" succeeded by an ominous blinking cursor. No instructions were written anywhere, and yet, without fail, the audience instinctively knew how to interact with this non-human.

Throughout its 33 days of exhibition at Spazju Kreattiv, the artwork recorded more than 1500 conversations with an estimated total of 2000+ visitors. This translates to more than half a million characters displayed on its CRT screen (667,624 to be very precise!).

Rick Rubin is famously quoted for saying that: "The audience comes last. I'm not making it for them; I'm making it for me." With the attention that my artwork received, I would be cheating myself if I pretended that the audience didn't matter.

But the fact of the matter is that I did make this artwork for my myself. I made this for 7-year-old me, whose biggest dream (and worst nightmare) was a computer that would talk back to him.

I hope he'd have like it.

Photos shot by the indefatigable James Balzan Sultana.