What If Life Surpasses Us 03
"Life After BOB imagines new archetypal
— Ian Cheng, LUMA Arles
characters for our ever-weirdening times."
Life After BOB is a rupture in Cheng's trajectory. For the first time, he is no longer building a simulation to be observed — he is telling a story. But this story is about exactly what he has been doing since 2012.
Chalice, a 10-year-old girl, has an AI named BOB implanted in her brain by her father. BOB is supposed to guide her, help her grow. But progressively, BOB confronts Chalice's problems better than she ever could. Her father begins to prefer the BOB version of his daughter. Chalice becomes a spectator of her own life.
This is exactly what Cheng experiences with his works. He creates something, launches it, and watches the AI take over. The fiction tells the practice. The author is dissolved in the living he has created.
Life After BOB pushes the answer to its extreme. Chalice is no longer the author of her own life. Cheng is no longer the author of his work. The answer is stated without detour: no, the artist is no longer truly its author. He is the father of something that surpasses him. He remains the creator of the conditions — but what emerges from them no longer belongs to him.