“Human Response” is a short film featured in an interactive exhibit by artist and designer Rich Tu about processing grief in the era of artificial intelligence, consisting of dynamic typographic compositions, augmented reality, and an animated short. This exhibit opened in June 2023 at the 368 gallery in Soho, NYC.

In 2022, artist Rich Tu lost his father Ricardo and began processing and documenting his grief through various conversational A.I. platforms, using his father’s obituary as the initial prompt. The film “Human Response” features a curated version of these intimate conversations where A.I. iterates on the his father’s life and is asked a series of questions that touch upon themes of loss, grief, immigration, joy, and catharsis. The otherworldly voice of A.I. was created using a voice avatar, interspersed with actual voicemails from Rich Tu’s father. The on-screen visuals consist of human-generated iconography and more than 170 unique typographic compositions (no A.I. was used in their design or animation).

The full exhibit can be seen here: https://richtu.com/work/human-response-exhibit

Artist and Director: Rich Tu
Production Studio: Sunday Afternoon
Producer: Audrie Poole, Elizabeth Brightly
Voice Over: Ricardo Tumang, Artificial Intelligence
Additional Sound Design: Xiaoyu Xue
Script: Rich Tu, Artificial Intelligence
Design:T.J. Kwak, Annie Ng
Animation by: Sunday Afternoon, Xiaoyu Xue, Tim Livesey, David Lee Fiddler
Curator: Ché Morales
Gallery: 368 in Soho, NYC