Love computer dating adventure (2022)

This project is a collaboration between Paulus van Horne and Te’ah Carlson. This project is still a work in progress. Soon, it will be fully playable.

LOVE COMPUTER DATING ADVENTURE is a visual novel game which asks the questions, “does my computer have a gender?” “Is my computer queer?” and finally, “am I gay for my computer!?”

On the surface, these are utterly absurd questions but they emerge from some common truths about how we relate to machines and their computerized speech.

With a voice, a computer may take on a kind of agency in our eyes (and ears). We begin to imagine what the internal life of a computer might be. As Philip K. Dick once asked, “do androids dream of electric sheep?”

Going even further, we might imagine the romantic and sexual desires of speaking computer. And so I ask the audience, “what does a computer want?” and conversely “what do I want from my computer?” Furthermore, how might these desires be expressed.

This game is an attempt not to answer these questions but to explore a speculative world in which these questions and their corollaries are taken to their logical conclusion.

TECHNICAL NOTE:

Many of the images in the game are generated and/or manipulated by AI. Additionally, each computer’s voice is recorded using its own built-in speech synthesizer.