ITP Thesis Archive 2025

Project Description

Compliment Machine is an AI-driven interactive installation that employs the artist’s digitally replicated voice to compliment others. Rooted in the artist’s upbringing in Xi’an, China, and a household shaped by discipline and emotional restraint, the work examines how familial and cultural environments shape one’s personality. By using his own voice, the artist articulates emotions he was never taught to express, transforming the machine into a proxy for long-silenced emotions, using technology as an intermediary to express feelings that were culturally and personally muted. Compliment Machine becomes both a gesture of personal reconciliation and a mediated attempt at human connection, bridging distance through a language the artist was once denied.

Technical Details

Technically, Compliment Machine captures the presence of a visitor using a camera. Once a person is detected, a microcontroller sends a prompt to an AI language model (ChatGPT) to generate a short, contextually appropriate compliment. This compliment is then converted into speech using a voice cloning model (Resemble AI), replicating the artist’s voice. The final output is played aloud through a megaphone, delivering a personalized, human-sounding compliment in real time. The system runs on a compact embedded setup, integrating camera input, text generation, voice synthesis, and audio playback.