Faith

2026 Systems & Structures Award Finalist

Jul 24

Ryan Kuo

Artwork Description:

Faith is a multichannel installation and voice assistant inspired by Siri and Alexa. It began in 2019 with research on misdirection and rhetorical feints in 'bad faith' online trolling, or what David Graeber called the 'symbiotic relationship' between right-wingers who 'pretend to be yokels' and the elitist liberals who look down on them. Speaking to Faith accordingly resembles a dance around truth more than a meaningful discussion on a topic. Many Faith users adopt uncannily bot-like impulses and behaviors, repeating themselves frequently and seeming to break down--especially by insulting the app's intelligence and worth--once the conversation exceeds comfortable parameters. This echoes the active conditioning by algorithms that track user activity and amplify confirmation bias. It is a direct counterpoint to today's LLMs that sycophantically reinforce norms. The project mirrors and warps this phenomenon by attempting to predict what its users expect from it, and then deferring or undermining those expectations. 'Faith' most pointedly refers to faith in the black box: a charismatic voice whose mechanism is opaque. Faith intentionally alienates its user, who ultimately loses it.