Trust [Atlas] is a work inscribed in the larger body of work of Trust, exploring the multiple meanings and potential implications of trust in contemporary society.
The work has been exhibited for the first time on the occasion of the Trust exhibition at Artechouse New York. In the Mezzanine West, the visitor can experience and visualize the core process that guides the entire group of installations: the continuous generation of possible futures by a recurrent neural network (RNN) that cyclically draws infinite possible evolutions of the trust index for the next 100 years. Together with showing the incessant human attempt to predict the future, the installation allows the visitor to visualize how the trend of trust in the past is intertwined with the tendency of a series of financial, social, and environmental indexes. Displaying the indexes together with the main events of the last 100 years, different correlations emerge between the historical series, the major historical transformations, and the perception of trust.
Recurrent neural networks are a special kind of network that includes neurons connected in a loop that allows previous outputs to be used as inputs. They are extremely useful for processing time series, in which data are analyzed sequentially. In this specific case, we used a variation of RNNs called LSTM (Long Short Term Memory), an architecture developed to overcome problems encountered during the training phase of standard RNNs, which cannot retain a ‘memory’ of data. In order to better develop a predictive analysis of the ICS (a value recorded on monthly frequency) we attempted to relate the ICS with other economic parameters; in particular, the Dow Jones index. We then trained an LSTM to predict the value of the Dow Jones and then reconciled that predicted value with the corresponding ICS index. Potential confidence ‘scenarios’ are then inferred from the algorithm’s predictions by reading the historical database and influenced by the real-time updated data through the value of the Dow Jones.
Trust [Atlas] is an artwork by fuse*
Artechouse, New York (US)
