Image and video credit to Jon McCormack
Exploring the dynamic between human and machine perception.
Aileen Ng is an artist, designer, engineer, and researcher working at the intersection of machine perception and human experience. Her practice explores how technology shapes our ways of seeing, knowing, and being and the tension between human authorship and algorithmic control.
How does technology shape our perception of ourselves and the world?
WORK
Machine Dreaming
Machine Dreaming (2025) is an interactive installation that explores the perceptual, and philosophical entanglements between humans and artificial intelligence.
What does it mean to perceive and be perceived in an age where intelligent systems continuously interpret, respond to, and reshape human experience?
In this work, viewers interact with a system that responds to their gestures and movements. As their likeness begins to morph into unfamiliar yet organic-alien-like forms, the relationship between self and system becomes entangled, challenging assumptions of agency, authorship, and control.
Machine Dreaming invites viewers to consider the shifting dynamics of control in human-AI interaction. Raising the question of whether agency can be shared, fluid, or even indeterminate between human and intelligent systems.
I acknowledge the Traditional Owners of the land that I live and work, the Wurundjeri People of the Kulin Nation and their ongoing connection to land, waters and culture.