About
Fortune Tasker is an interactive installation by Nadine Lessio and Alenn Predko using an Amazon Alexa, reclaimed deer skull, and a tiny printer. Fortune Tasker is a prototype that explores some ideas around the concept of useless machines, which is a device that serves no utilitarian function, and the magical object, in which a technological device is framed as other worldly rather than commonplace. Currently, personal assistants are positioned by their parent companies as helpful, general use computing devices that are developed for a wide audience. Fortune Tasker is an exploration in subverting that notion by modifying it into a computing device that serves a very specific need for a very specific person. Striped of its voice, and removed from its prescribed consumer function, Fortune Tasker can only provide the service of a personal medium by printing out absurd fortunes on receipts, and a task for the user to complete if they so desire. Fortunes are programatically assembled on the fly, from a large corpus of nouns, verbs, places and things, resulting in amusing and unexpected outcomes.
