Thinking about the artwork “Remote Hugs”, I believe current physical computing devices are incapable of understanding and replicating human emotions due to their complexity. Emotions are constructed through a series of events that occur throughout one’s life, and we need to comprehend each event to truly understand and simulate one’s emotions. Since Remote Hug does not have the capability to analyze people comprehensively, I think it cannot replicate human warmth. Even the author mentioned that they were not able to understand the motivation behind it. Thus, I believe we need to integrate deep learning or machine learning mechanisms into such affective computing devices to better understand one’s emotional states.
In terms of the second reading, I disagree with the author in the sense that we should not completely let the audience interpret the meaning and purpose of an artwork on their own. I used to be a big fan of this idea, but that idea changed after I went to teamLab. When I visited teamLab, I experienced all the immersive artworks there but I was confused about what they were trying to convey and what kinds of experiences they wanted me to have. At the end of the day, I was completely lost and feeling dizzy heading back to campus. I think the essence of an artwork is to guide the audience through the experience, allowing them to connect it with their own personal thoughts and emotions. It goes back to the discussion we had about how we can incorporate randomness into artwork. As an artist, I think it is important to have a clear motivation and purpose behind the artwork and to guide the audience in how to interpret it.